EdVANTAGE Blog

The Paterson Administration has launched a new effort to wear down opposition to the Governor’s proposed mid-year budget cuts — “The Daily DRP.”  DRP stands for Deficit Reduction Plan and presumably is to be pronounced “drip.”

These postings to the Governor’s website each day pose “Did you know?” queries about aspects of the Governor’s budget cutting proposals.

The first focused on the School Aid cuts, with the Administration asking, “Did you know that 95 percent of school districts have reported undesignated reserves in excess of their proposed DRP reduction?”

The post goes on to note,”For a district by district breakdown of reported reserves, go to the State Education Department’s property tax report card website at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/mgtserv/propertytax/”

Reacting to this effort, I’m quoted in today’s Albany Times Union:

“We’re all heading for the same cliff, the state and schools,” said Robert Lowry, associate director of the state Council of School Superintendents.  “The governor would rather have the schools go off the cliff sooner.”

I don’t think I included the word “rather,” and if I did, I regret that.  It might be taken to suggest an intention and desire to have harm befall schools, and I don’t believe that to be the case.

As I said in our testimony for the Assembly last week on the proposed cuts, “We recognize that no elected official wants to cut aid to schools across the state.”  And, in fact, School Aid’s share of the overall proposed cuts is much smaller than its share of total state spending.

But I also said, “We will not minimize the hardship you face in balancing the state’s finances. Please don’t minimize the challenges confronting school leaders.”

In our testimony, I explained that many districts do foresee a need to cut positions to accommodate the proposed cuts, some through layoffs.  The poorest districts seem to face the worst choices.

Some superintendents have noted that the reserve fund figures on the SED website are out-of-date and inaccurate.  They were estimated last spring and since that time some districts have spent reserves, either on planned expenses or unforeseen emergencies.

Nearly all superintendents expressed alarm at the thought of using-up reserves now, knowing the prospects for further School Aid austerity and surging pension costs.

One upstate superintendent observed, “We are desperately seeking to avoid solving a short-term crisis by creating a long-term catastrophe.”

Exhausting reserves now would send some schools off a financial cliff before they can make better decisions to protect schoolchildren, and before the state can act to help schools reduce the costs they ask taxpayers to share.