Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill that had passed overwhelmingly in the state Legislature with a combined 206-1 vote and corrects a five-year-old clerical error in the Fulton City School District. After waiting years for a solution, the students and families in the district will have to wait even longer.

The Assembly bill (A.09951) would restore $1.6 million in transportation aid to the school district. As far as legislation, it is about as non-controversial as they come. However, in his veto message, the governor states that the measure creates "new financial obligations not accounted for within the state’s financial plan." This is illogical and factually inaccurate. Indeed, this is critical funding that had already been appropriated.

As the sponsor of this bill, I am extremely disappointed in, and quite frankly surprised by, the governor’s action.

Clerical errors happen in every organization and institution. In this case, a simple mistake regarding the school district’s transportation contract left the district in a tough spot. We have tried for years to restore the funds, and this appeared to be resolved with the recent near-unanimous vote of the Legislature to remedy the error. Cuomo’s veto comes out of left field, much like his half-hearted explanation.

The state’s financial plan should have accounted for this mistake each of the last four years. And, further, the $1.6 million figure is a drop in the bucket compared to the totality of what New York state spends on education and ancillary services each year. Something isn’t adding up.

This veto unnecessarily harms students, parents and the district’s residents at a time when economic uncertainty is already at critical levels. This is stress and anxiety they simply cannot afford right now. Whatever misguided agenda Gov. Cuomo has should not be the problem of the hard-working families in Fulton. He is making a bad situation worse.

I am calling upon the Legislature to override this veto—we clearly have no shortage of support in both chambers—and finally implement a fix to an issue that should have been resolved years ago. Our school districts are under enough pressure from a global pandemic; they don’t need to add the governor’s misguided decision to the list of things keeping them awake at night.