Regents to eye consolidation plan Tuesday

ALBANY -- School districts could create regional high schools while stopping short of full-scale district consolidations under a proposal the state Board of Regents will consider Tuesday.

The change, which would require new state legislation, would give districts "greater flexibility" to combine services at a time of tight resources, said James Tallon Jr., chairman of a Regents subcommittee that made the recommendation Monday.

"Current law just doesn't give you much consolidation," Tallon said.

Under existing law, only four school districts have consolidated in the past decade, according to a State Education Department memo. Forming regional high school districts was permitted in the state before 1944. But that law was revoked, with an exception made for Suffolk County in 1981.

The Regents subcommittee also recommended changes in reimbursement policies for the cost of school construction. Existing incentives have led to 9 percent annual growth of school building aid over the past five years, said Chuck Szuberla, state assistant commissioner for school operations. The subcommittee recommended rolling back an aid increase that was enacted in 1998.

Another recommendation would change the way the state calculates school construction aid. The state currently takes into account a district's wealth when figuring the local and state share of spending for construction. However, the rules allow that calculation to be based on the point in time over the past 30 years that a district's wealth was at its lowest. The proposed change would base construction aid on a district's current wealth.

Both building aid changes would save the state $471 million annually, according to the memo.

Overall, school aid spending would grow by $755 million to $20.3 billion in next year's budget, with 73 percent of new state aid going to high-need school districts, according to the subcommittee proposal.

Alliance for Quality Education, a group that lobbies for education spending, said the proposals would help needy urban and rural school districts that have lost out to wealthier suburban communities.

"In 2011, New York State abandoned its commitment to equity in school funding and made much larger cuts to poor school districts than to wealthy ones," Alliance spokeswoman Nikki Jones said in a statement. "The Regents have proposed fixes to the school aid formula that would prioritize providing funding for needy schools."