The Fiscal Policy Institute has released school aid data based on the adopted budget. Their data shows the city’s share of state school aid was cut. But from what I can see, this data only includes school aid that is called school aid. From a practical perspective, it doesn’t matter if you send money to schools for them to spend without collecting local taxes, send money to schools to offset the local taxes they do not then collect because they spend it instead (STAR), or send money to taxpayers to offset what they do collect (the new checks). Education funding, therefore, in reality includes STAR and the new “tax relief” checks. I want to see it all.
The Governor’s proposal, recall, was to have the city’s share of the total remain unchanged at 37%. That proposal hit city taxpayers harder than an increase in the city’s own eduation spending, because they would have had to pay 40% plus of the state taxes to get that 37% back. So what was adopted?
Two things I don’t to hear.
One is that no figures can be provided for the school tax checks, because it depends on who applies. If the Spitzer Administration could produce an estimate for the city’s share (and everyone else’s) in its budget proposal, it could do so for the adopted budget.
Second, I don’t want to see the money the city borrows for school construction included. The state has a non-binding, likely to be reneged on committment to pay the interest on those bonds. That committment is renewed, or not, each year. The only funding for the city schools in fiscal 2008 is the interest actually paid on bonds already issued in this year. Cash outlays, in other words. After 9/11, the city government was permitted to borrow money and we are still giving up things to pay the interest on some of those bonds. That was the rest of the state’s entire contribution to the city’s recovery. Enough of that.