Governor proposes $686 million in mid-year School Aid cuts — Updated 3X
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:48 pm by Robert Lowry
Just a short time ago, Governor David Paterson unveiled plans for mid-year budget cuts to close the state’s current year budget deficit, now estimated at $3 billion.
The plan would cut School Aid by a total of $686 million for the 2009-10 school year, or 3 percent. The cut would amount to 4.5 percent of undisbursed aid payments.
The cut would save the state $480 million in its current fiscal year. The balance of the school year savings for the state would be realized in the first quarter (April-June 2010) of its next fiscal year.
The Governor’s news release explains,
“The School Aid reduction would be structured progressively based on local fiscal capacity, student need, and residential tax effort. Prior to proposed mid-year actions, enacted 2009-10 school year School Aid was projected to total $21.9 billion, an increase of $415 million or 1.9 percent from 2008-09. enactment of the DRP, overall 2009-10 school year School Aid would total $21.2 billion, a decrease of $271 million or 1.3 percent from 2008-09.”
For now, proposed district-by-district cuts are not available and may not be available today.
UPDATE: District-by-district proposed reductions are now available here.
Or go to www.budget.state.ny.us, then click on “School Aid Reductions.”
This is a proposed cut. It cannot be implemented unless approved by the Assembly and Senate.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has said that he would convene hearings before acting on the Governor’s proposals.
UPDATE: Speaker Silver said the Assembly Ways and Means Committee will hold hearings on the Governor’s mid-year cut proposals next Wednesday (October 21) in Albany and Friday (October 23) in Syracuse.
UPDATE: The Senate will also hold hearings, starting Monday, October 26th in New York City, and followed by hearings in Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and Buffalo.
The New York Daily News reported that Senate Finance Committee Chair Carl Kruger said, “We’re going to differ on the size of the deficit,” and “We’ll analyze what he proposes outside the arena of hysteria and begin the process of dealing with it…”
There would also be cuts to categorical programs, such as Extended School Day, Targeted Pre-K, Summer Special Education, Nonpublic School Aid, and Legislative grants, for example. A list is available here.
The Governor said most other spending areas would be cut by 10 percent.
The STAR program is excluded from cuts.
The Governor’s news release is available here.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Finance, State Budget. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Tags: