March 2007 Vol. XXI, No. 3 

ASSOCIATION TESTIFIES BEFORE JOINT LEGISLATIVE HEARING

Executive Director Bob Biggerstaff delivered testimony on February 27^th on behalf of the Association on the 2007-08 Executive Budget. The testimony supported the Governor’s reforms in general. Specifically, it made seven recommendations for change and additions to those reforms. The complete testimony is on the Association website (http://scsd.neric.org). The seven recommendations are as follows:

     1. BASIC COST OF OPERATIONS INCREASES: The proposed 3% save harmless increase in Foundation Aid is too low for most of our districts. On the basis of a recent survey, our districts are experiencing between 5 and 8% increases in the basic cost of doing business, without making any staffing or programmatic improvements. A 3% base increase in State Aid would erode the extra funds intended for new programs or drive double digit tax rate increases, particularly in those districts most heavily dependent on State Aid, i.e. poor districts. At a minimum, the base increase in State Aid should be raised for poorer districts to at least a ceiling of 6% on a graduated basis.

      2. REGIONAL COST FACTOR: With respect to the regional cost factor, the State Education Department made a serious attempt to determine regional cost levels around the state, but they lacked the staff to perform a real study.  Thus, they were forced to rely on a proxy: professional wages from overly broad regions.  Given that this index helps drive over $13,000,000,000 in state funding, we believe that a true market basket study of actual school inputs: teachers, administrators, support staff, equipment, materials, utilities, etc. be undertaken to determine the real price differentials existing across the state.  This is not only critical for a fair aid distribution, it is also necessary to perform meaningful benchmarking studies.  This need should not delay implementation of the Executive formula, but should provide a mid-course correction beginning next year.

      3.  HIGH TAX RATES: Because a district is high need and low wealth does not in every case mean they have not begun to make strides toward improved student achievement. Several small city school districts, including Cohoes CSD for example, have already reduced class sizes and implemented new programs. They have accomplished this, however, on the backs of local taxpayers who are now subject to very high tax rates. For these districts there must be greater flexibility in the use of new State Aid to support existing programs, hold the line on tax rates and avoiding skyrocketing rates in the future.

      4.  AUSTERITY BUDGET CAP: Amend provisions of the austerity budget cap so that the cap is the “greater” not the “lesser” of 4% or 120% of the CPI and provide that increases in health insurance, energy and TRS/ERS costs and Foundation Aid increases are exempted from the austerity budget cap. Without these amendments, districts on austerity will be required to fire staff and otherwise gut essential programs and will not be able to use the new Foundation Aid intended to enhance student achievement and as required under the Contracts for Excellence.

5.  CHARTER SCHOOLS: Provide that new charter schools be subject to local school district approval, provide state aid to public school districts for the full amount of the stranded costs of students attending charter schools and provide that charter schools shall be paid at separate AOEs depending on whether the students are attending an elementary charter school or secondary charter school. We believe that districts losing students to charter schools will experience increases in costs equal to 2/3 of the AOE per child on an indefinite basis. These increases in costs are a direct tax on the local property taxpayer, who in small city districts is already overburdened (See Exhibit C for greater explanation of the charter school problem).

6.  CONSTITUTIONAL DEBT CEILING: Non-city districts have debt ceilings which are 4 times as great as in small city school districts. We ask that debt ceiling reform for Small City School Districts be enacted by approving legislation excluding amounts received in Building Aid from computation under the debt ceiling as is currently applicable to non-city districts, and by providing that debt incurred by small city districts through the New York State Dormitory Authority be excludable from debt ceiling computations.

      7.  TARGETING OTHER AIDS: With respect to aids left outside the Foundation Aid formula, the State Budget should further target limited State resources by modifying Public Excess Cost Aid, Private Excess Cost Aid, Building Aid, BOCES Aid, and other aids containing guaranteed minimums and flat grants, so as to provide greater equalization in aid distribution. (See attached Exhibit D for specific proposals)

The testimony also made the following observations regarding accountability: 

The Governor has also addressed the critical issue of accountability, i.e. the issue of how we can be assured that the significant investment in children he intends will be used most effectively and will result in meaningful progress toward explicit educational goals. It can be asserted without fear of contradiction that any plan for accountability must place responsibility for performance at the appropriate level within the educational system. In other words, accountability for results must be properly gauged according to the job description and qualifications of the individuals within the system. Accountability must therefore involve the whole district/school at every level in order to develop a workable plan. At a minimum we would recommend that accountability be extended to instructional staff so that administrators would have tools at their disposal commensurate with their responsibilities. In addition, we would recommend the elimination of the rebuttable presumption of willful neglect of duty provision as excessively harsh and possibly counter-productive. Such a presumption would unreasonably tilt the balance of responsibility for student performance away from those most intimately involved with the day to day work in our schools.

This testimony is an excellent statement and will be used in the coming weeks as a basis for working with the Governor and Legislature. A number of Association members assisted in this effort and our thanks in particular goes out to Judith Johnson, Superintendent Peekskill CSD, Raymond Fashano, Superintendent Jamestown CSD, Charles Dedrick, Superintendent Cohoes CSD, Judy Doesschate, Board Member Albany CSD and consultant Charles Winters for their help.

SENATE AND ASSEMBLY HOLD HEARING ON GOVERNOR’S EDUCATION BUDGET

Following well established tradition, the two Houses of the Legislature scheduled joint hearings on various parts of the Governor’s Budget for 2007-08. The Education Budget hearing was held on February 27^th and was attended by Legislative Chairpersons of the two fiscal committees, Senator Owen Johnson (R-Long Island) and Assemblyman Herman Farrell (D-NYC) and of the two Education committees, Senator Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie) and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan (D-NYC), along with eleven others. Initially, ten of the fifteen Legislators on the hearing panel represented NYC and Long Island and, of the other five, only two represented small cities. Senator Saland and Assemblyman Joel Miller (R-Poughkeepsie).

The hearing began with a lengthy appearance by Commissioner Richard Mills. The Commissioner enthusiastically supported the Executive’s reforms for education and withstood a plethora of detailed questions about the Contract for Excellence, the “save harmless” districts, Special Education and the Regional Cost Factor used by the Executive Budget reform formula. The Commissioner talked about the “value added” approach in determining a district’s progress. Although the Commissioner acknowledged that this approach is federally approved under the NCLB Act, he said it was still controversial and the Department would be conservative in its application in the Contract for Excellence. He also said the approach was a key element in the overall accountability plan relating to superintendent’s and administrator’s accountability. He said that under the reforms definition of “low performing schools” would start with the 53 SURR schools and would also use performance on the 3 through 8 exams, among other factors. With respect to Universal Pre-Kindergarten he said the reforms do not require that every child attend by year four, but that it be universally available and that the $250/child minimum does not necessarily create a prohibitively expensive mandate for districts on the minimum.

With respect to Charter Schools, he said the need for them would evaporate if the local public schools were performing better, that 150 new charters is a moderate increase and that transition aid deals only with the incremental increase in numbers attending charters. On school intervention for failing schools he said the Governor’s reform is based on much of what the Department has been successfully doing already. Since 1989, 200 of the 280 SURR schools have improved and been removed from this list. The Commissioner’s concern was that these schools, while improved, have not achieved excellence, which of course is the ultimate goal.

NYC Chancellor Joel Klein followed the Commissioner and wholly supported the Governor’s education reforms. He also extolled the NYC Charter and NYC Small Schools initiatives as highly successful, particularly for “high needs kids in high needs areas.”

Next to appear was Alan Lubin, Executive Vice President of NYSUT, who joined the Chancellor and Commissioner in praising the Executive Budget. Qualifying his support, he criticized elimination of Magnet School Aid, use of test data for evaluation of teachers, numbers of Charters without significant financial reforms, and performance and governance reforms (86% of neighborhood schools out perform Charters).

Others that appeared included Eva Joseph, Superintendent Albany CSD (who said her district has the highest number of Charter School children per capita in the state, that the Governor’s transition aid of $2.5 million is far short of the actual cost of charters at $22 million, that Charters caused elimination of 41 teachers/assistants last year). Also appearing were the Big Five City Schools (asked for 25% not 20% Foundation Aid in 2007-08, and charter school reform), James Williams, Buffalo CSD (asked for tenure reform), Daniel Lowengard, Syracuse CSD (asked for additional staff for professional development on a full time basis, and additional dollars for extended time/day/year and full day Pre-K), Abe Lackman, CICU (who said that there are 37,000 fewer Kindergarteners in NYS this year than in 1995 or 15% and that the State is not doing well with graduation rates for children of color), Tim Kremer, NYSSBA (asked to pull out Special Education Aid from Foundation Aid, refuse to increase numbers of Charters and reject tuition tax deductions), and Robert Lowry, NYSCOSS (opposing superintendent firings as means of accountability).

LEGISLATIVE BREAKFAST

MARCH 13, 2007

Invitations to the 21^st annual Legislative Breakfast have gone out. This year the breakfast is scheduled for Tuesday, March 13, 2007 starting at 8:00 am at the Fort Orange Club in Albany.  Scheduled to speak are: DOB Director Paul Francis, Senator Stephen Saland, and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, Chairs of their respective Education Committees. All 66 Legislators from the 57 Small City School Districts will also be invited.

AGENDA AND REGISTRATION BELOW:

8:00 am –  10:30 am

Breakfast and Introductory remarks

Association President Judith Johnson, Superintendent Peekskill CSD

Speakers        

Paul Francis, Director, Division of Budget

Senator Stephen Saland (R-C, Poughkeepsie), Chair of the Senate Education Committee   

Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan (D, Queens), Chair of the Assembly Education Committee

10:30 – 12:30 pm        Lobbying Appointments at the Capitol

             Bob Biggerstaff and members of the Board of Directors are scheduling appointments at the Capitol with Senator Joseph Bruno, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, Senator Malcolm Smith, Minority Leader and Assemblyman James Tedisco, Minority Leader, Governor Eliot Spitzer. Members are encouraged to make appointments during this time with their individual representatives. Our office will provide pens and notepads to give out at these meetings as well as substantive materials. Below is the registration form for the breakfast. Please feel free to call or email our office with any questions.                                                          

REGISTRATION: NYSASCSD Legislative Breakfast March 13, 2007 Fort Orange Club

Name(s):________________________________________

 

Title:___________________________________________

 

District: __________________________________________

Please respond, if possible, by March 6, 2007. There is a $30.00 fee for each individual.  Checks should be made out to the NYS Association of Small City School Districts.  Please return your completed form with the fee to Beth Biggerstaff, The Biggerstaff Law Firm, 318 Delaware Avenue, Main Square, Delmar, NY 12054 (518) 475-9500, (518) 475-7677 FAX, beb@biggerstaff-firm.com.

ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE PLANNING BEGINS

PATHWAYS TO EXCELLENCE

The Association has begun planning for its 21^st Annual Conference scheduled for May 20^th – 21^st, 2007 at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York.

This year’s program, Pathways to Excellence, will address the issue of “accountability” the Governor has married to increased funding, calling it a Contract for Excellence by looking at effective strategies for increasing and supporting student performance. Experts from academia, SED and small city school administrators are being invited to participate in discussions on student performance from elementary school through high school. These experts are also being asked to submit scholarly work to be included in a report on how to achieve success in small city schools and also provide an opportunity for dialogue with conference participants. This will be an ambitious under taking, but with the help of our membership, we believe we can begin developing materials which will be of real assistance to districts attempting to take major strides forward. We hope you can join us there.

SPAM FILTERS

Please be aware that from time to time the Association’s newsletters, legislative alerts and other e-mail correspondence are returned as “undeliverable” due to district spam filters. Our office is working to address this issue and will fax these messages to district offices as they are returned. Association correspondence will come from either Bob Biggerstaff (reb@biggerstaff-firm.com) or Beth (beb@biggerstaff-firm.com). Spam filters can be adjusted to allow messages from these email addresses to be delivered. Please let our office know if there is anything we can do to help make communication successful.

UPCOMING
EVENTS

March 13, 2007
Legislative Breakfast
Fort Orange Club
Albany, NY 

May 20-21, 2007
Annual Conference
Gideon Putnam Hotel
Saratoga Springs 

October 28, 2007
Board of Directors Meeting
Time and Place: TBD