Unions, others pan Cuomo school aid plan

ALBANY -- During budget hearings Monday, unions and education advocates panned Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's proposal to require school districts to compete for $250 million in aid.

Andrew Pallotta, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers, a statewide teachers union, said that while districts were promised a 4 percent increase in state funding, the competitive grant program effectively cut that increase. The increase was promised after Cuomo slashed the current year's spending to help close a $10 billion deficit last year.

"While we share the governor's commitment to school performance, we do not support the use of competitive grants as a means of leveraging state aid to provide a sound basic education," Pallotta said in prepared testimony. "These funds are needed to support the core educational program that all schools and students need, and are not limited to certain schools or school districts."

Pallotta said that the competitive grants, along with the linking of state aid to school districts reaching agreements with unions over teacher evaluation systems, would create uncertainty as they budget for the 2012-13 school year.

Cuomo's office fired back at the claim of reneging on increased school aid.

"This claim is simply not credible given that under the governor's budget, New York's schools will be receiving an increase of $805 million in school aid, with the overwhelming majority going to high-needs districts," Cuomo spokesman Matthew Wing said in an email. "Spending more on the bureaucracy without encouraging better performance and results doesn't work and only continues the pattern of putting the needs of special interests ahead of our students."

The governor's office said that high-needs school districts would receive 76 percent of the increase in school aid and 69 percent of total school aid.

The New York State School Boards Association, which represents school boards across the state, also called on lawmakers not to enact the competitive grant program.State Education Commissioner John King acknowledged at the hearing that the Board of Regents had proposed sending all $250 million to high-needs districts. "Under the Regents proposal, all the new dollars would go to high-needs districts," he said. "We are particularly concerned about the high-needs districts," he said.