Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara joined superintendents, teachers and students from Schenectady County school districts Friday at Schalmont High School to call for fair funding. The Schalmont, Mohonasen and Duanesburg school districts would all see decreases in state aid in the coming school year under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget for 2016-2017 at a time when they, like schools across the state, are already owed millions of dollars.

“We expected public education would be high on the governor’s priority list when he referenced the importance of public schools, the positive economic climate and the surplus in the state in his address” Mohonasen Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Spring said. “Our hopes were dashed when we received state aid runs. Under the governor’s proposed budget we are facing a gap of approximately $1 million, which will force us to consider significant cuts.”

Santabarbara called for the passage of a measure in the State Assembly he continues to sponsor that would change the way school districts are funded statewide. The bill (A.4609), called the School Funding Equity Act, would reform the state’s school aid formula to bring fairness to upstate school districts that have been underfunded for too many years.

“When it comes to education funding, every state budget feels like ‘Groundhog Day,’” Assemblyman Santabarbara said. “Now is the time to change that. We can no longer afford to take a Band-Aid approach to the inequities in education funding that force our districts to cut the valuable programs that help our students succeed. This year, let’s do away with an outdated funding formula that’s keeping our upstate school districts from receiving the funds they need.”

Santabarbara and school leaders also called for an end this year – not in two years, as proposed by the governor – to the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA), which has redirected billions of dollars away from the state’s schools since it was first enacted in 2010.

“The GEA is crippling our upstate schools and it must be eliminated this year,” Santabarbara said. “Ending the GEA is long overdue and will give immediate relief to our school districts that need those resources to provide our children with a brighter future.”

Unless the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) is eliminated this year, Schalmont, Mohonasen and Duanesburg would stand to lose funding in the amounts of $493,158, $416,585 and $164,952, respectively. That would be in addition to the governor’s reduced state aid proposals for 2016-2017, which amount to funding losses of $30,686 for Schalmont, $432,866 for Mohonasen and $218,034 for Duanesburg.

“While it is good to see an end in sight for the GEA, promising to eliminate it over the next two years doesn’t help us budget for 2016-17 when our district will face a significant gap of approximately $1 million or more,” Schalmont Superintendent Dr. Carol Pallas said. “To close this gap out of a $45 million budget will have a direct impact on our students. The lack of full GEA restoration along with a decrease in aid for our district and a close to zero percent tax cap formula converge to create a situation that will force us to make significant cuts to program and personnel and/or convince our community to support a tax levy amount beyond our usual limit. Neither are optimal choices for our students and taxpayers.”

Schalmont English teacher Mike Libertucci said, "After the promise of record aid last year in order to pass his education reforms, schools added, and after years of cuts, finally were able to reinstate many of the important programs that are essential to our children's growth and education. This year, the governor has backtracked, and is forcing districts to cut all of the programs that were added with the aid from last year. We need to sustain the progress we have made financially since the Great Recession; instead the governor is cutting once again. This is political and our children are the pawns."

Duanesburg Superintendent Christine Crowley said, “Duanesburg has a tax base of 97 percent homeowners that have always supported our schools. However, we are acutely aware of how important it is for us to keep those taxes down while offering the best possible education we can to our students to be competitive when applying to colleges or entering the work force. With the governor’s recently released numbers, we would be forced to make cuts to programs that directly impact our students.”

Additionally, these districts are already owed $1.09 million (Schalmont), $3.59 million (Mohonasen) and $.47 million (Duanesburg), according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a landmark school funding lawsuit whose settlement with New York requires the state to provide billions more to schools across the state.

“This is a debt that’s long overdue,” Santabarbara said. “It’s time to provide the funding these schools need – which is far more, not less. We can’t make our schools wait any longer.”