Legislative leaders and the governor have yet to reach an agreement on the state budget, which is now more than three weeks late.
The delay comes as local governments and school districts are formulating their own budget plans.
State aid represents a big chunk of funding for local schools. But since the state budget is delayed, districts aren’t exactly sure what they’re getting this year. Districts outside of the “Big 5” cities (New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers) are required by law to submit their budgets to voters by next month.
“And so at this point in the game, districts are being forced to work on … the information we have, and make decisions that will impact next year, like around staffing, or it could be around resourcing or programming,” said Aaron Johnson, superintendent of West Irondequoit School District and president of the Monroe County Council of School Superintendents.
Lawmakers passed a couple of budget extenders this week alone and six overall. One, passed on Monday, included funding for schools.
“Even though they've frozen much of their spending as they're still working on their budget, we can't do that,” Johnson said. “We have bills that we have to pay that are currently due, everything from … our utilities to, you know, the different food that we buy, the technology, all of these things we have to continue to support.”
Legislative leaders say they understand the concerns of local districts. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said every district is slated to receive at least a 1% increase in foundation aid this year, based on the governor’s proposal. The Senate proposed at least a 2% increase in its one-house budget proposal.
“We obviously would like to see some different things. And so, at least there is a baseline and again, no one is getting less,” Stewart-Cousins said. “We are really trying to wrap this up and you know, I’m hoping we are able to do it in the next couple of weeks.”
But Johnson pointed out that even if districts get more money than anticipated, they’re limited in how they can use that funding after their budgets are set.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie blamed the delay in part on the budget process itself. Governors in New York have a lot of control over what’s part of the budget and Heastie said they haven’t even gotten into issues of dollars and cents.
Negotiations continue over policy issues like auto insurance reform, immigration and changes to the state’s climate law.
“I don't really get to bring up money until policy is done. So … I'd like to give the school districts, you know, some certainty on what it's going to be,” Heastie told reporters Wednesday.
The timing for local governments is less acute, but they also are still formulating their budgets. Cities like Buffalo and Albany are hoping for state aid to help close budget gaps.
“I'm hoping that they can come with a consensus to be able to move forward, so that way the budget can be passed, so we can kind of move forward with some of the initiatives that we have,” Poughkeepsie Mayor Yvonne Flowers said.
Flowers joined some of her fellow mayors in touting the governor’s auto insurance proposals at the Capitol on Wednesday.
Assemblymember John McDonald, a Democrat and former mayor of Cohoes, said it would be good to give local governments some certainty even as they have more leeway than school districts at the moment.
“Particularly to the big cities, but all these cities, we're going to be trying to help distressed cities overall, and distressed local governments for them to have a rough idea of what are they going to be working with on the revenue side, as they're trying to pare down the expense side,” he said.
Legislators return to the Capitol on Monday, likely to pass another budget extender as talks continue.
