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The Association of Small City School Districts, speaking for the quarter of a million school children and 1.5 million residents in small cities, will testify before the joint hearing of the state legislature on the executive budget on February 27^th in Albany and will commend Governor Eliot Spitzer’s proposed reforms for education funding and accountability. the executive budget offers proposals for historic reforms in education funding including establishment of a foundation formula replacing traditional operating Aid and categorical aids. The foundation formula would target new aid over a four year period to school children and districts in the greatest need for the explicitly stated goal of achieving excellence in education for all schools and children.  

The governor has implicitly recognized that New York has two school systems, one for the wealthier middle and upper class communities and another for low wealth communities. For decades lower wealth communities have not received sufficient resources to support fully their school programs. As a result school taxes in these districts have soared in comparison to wealthier districts. The disparity in school tax rates can be clearly demonstrated: in some districts tax rates are $5/$1000 of assessed value while in many small city districts rates are as high as $26/$1000. This gross disparity is a direct result of the failure of traditional school aid formulas. This disparity effectively cripples the capacity in these communities to meet the needs of their school children.

Association executive Robert Biggerstaff, who will deliver the testimony has said that “the governor has provided us with an opportunity to move education in New York into a new era, an era where all children will have the supports necessary to fulfill their potential” he also said that “as a result our state has the unique chance of becoming a lighthouse for the nation, a lighthouse showing the way to provide excellence in education for all.”