Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo (D-Endwell) announced today that Broome County school districts will receive $6,094,458 more in aid than originally proposed in Governor Cuomo’s executive budget with $5,557,493 going toward Gap Elimination Restoration and $536,965 going toward additional foundation aid.

Lupardo was successful at getting language in the budget that addresses the income wealth ratio concern that was raised by local school districts. Previously, the school funding formula penalized schools that are too poor, or that have an “Income Wealth Index” below 65 percent of average wealth, by rounding up their income levels and essentially shortchanging them in state aid.

“I fought hard for this change in the foundation aid formula,” Lupardo said. “This will ensure that in the future schools will receive funding based on their true financial circumstances.”

“We were happy to see that Assemblywoman Lupardo and her colleagues listened to us with regard to the hard financial times that we are all navigating through,” said Allen Buyck, district superintendent of Broome-Delaware-Tioga BOCES. “Any time we can take constraints off of our aid formulas, it is a step in the right direction to allow aid to flow to the neediest districts. While the changes on the income wealth index do not solve all of our problems, it is a step in the right direction and will help drive aid to the districts that need it the most. “

In addition, Union-Endicott School District will receive a one time appropriation of $3.1 million to help offset a significant tax revenue loss due to the Huron Campus tax reassessment. “We were able to successfully argue that due to this loss, U-E qualified for additional funding for districts facing an extraordinary change in the taxable property valuation,” said Lupardo.