Gov. Cuomo‘s priorities are totally askew. In October, Cuomo formed a tax-relief commission, co-chaired by former Gov. George Pataki and former State Controller Carl McCall, to come up with $2 billion in tax cuts for businesses and property owners. Last month, the commission issued a report recommending that $1 billion be used to freeze property taxes and the other billion to pay for lower corporate tax rates, estate taxes and a number of other business tax reductions.
All this is occurring at a time when, based on legislative reforms enacted in response to a 1995 court ruling, New York is almost $4 billion in arrears on its existing obligations to the state’s public school students and, as a result, schools around the state — particularly those serving students from low-income households — are unable to supply basic educational resources.
The governor is now projecting a $2 billion surplus. How, in good conscience, can that amount be applied to new tax cuts, while at the same time the state’s public school children are being told that they must continue to suffer because there is a “gap” in the state’s current budget?
If there really is a $2 billion surplus in the state’s budget projections, then we should start correcting the failure to provide fair levels of education funding to schools throughout the state.
Some suggest that New York State, with average per-pupil funding of about $19,000, can’t possibly owe public schools more money. But this ignores the high costs of providing a meaningful opportunity for students to meet New York State’s high costs and high standards, and the profound inequities that plague the state — inequities that the court ruling was intended to correct.
The Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, recently undertook an in-depth analysis of compliance with the state’s obligation under the New York State Constitution to provide a sound, basic education. We visited 33 high-need schools in New York City and in seven other urban, suburban and rural school districts throughout the state.
The results were startling: 15 of the 33 schools lacked sufficient numbers of teachers to meet minimum instructional time requirements in one or more core subjects (English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies).
The vast majority of the schools lacked enough certified teachers to meet state requirements in the arts, career development and occupational studies, health, libraries and physical education.
Twenty-eight of the 33 schools did not have enough psychologists and social workers to meet the needs of students with behavioral or adjustment problems, and 11 of the 12 high schools were unable to provide their students with college-readiness counseling and supports.
In 2007, in response to the court ruling, the Legislature enacted a thorough reform of the state’s education funding system and promised substantial increases over a four-year phase-in period to remedy these deplorable conditions.
During the third year of the intended phase-in, however, the recession occurred, and the state froze further phase-in increases. Subsequently, state education funding was substantially cut. Even though Cuomo and the Legislature have over the past two years provided some additional funding that has lessened the previous budget reductions, overall state funding is still essentially back at the grossly inadequate 2007 levels.
The state has never denied that the full funding levels are necessary to meet constitutional sound, basic education requirements. Instead, they have adopted devices like a “gap elimination adjustment,” which says that billions of dollars must be cut from the state’s educational obligations to help cover a “gap” in the state’s budget.
The real property-tax rebates that the tax-relief commission recommended are especially pernicious. They will go only to residents of school districts that abide by the 2% cap on property-tax increases that the state put into effect two years ago.
At that time, school districts were told that if they could convince the district’s taxpayers that increases of more than 2% were necessary to meet their children’s needs, larger increases could be approved, but only if 60% of the voters supported the tax.
Now, a huge additional disincentive is being proposed to discourage voters from even considering overcoming the 60% hurdle. Because voters in New York City do not have the authority to approve property-tax increases, New York City residents would not even receive any of the benefits of this proposed property tax rebate.
Public school students throughout the state continue to go to schools with skeleton staffing, inadequate facilities, insufficient books and out-of-date technology. Let’s meet our existing obligations to these children before considering providing additional benefits for taxpayers.
Rebell is the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, and was co-counsel for plaintiffs in CFE vs. State.
