OPINION: If you're going to cut aid, cut mandates

Marc Bernstein is superintendent of the Valley Stream Central High School District.

Gov. David A. Paterson, in reacting to New York State's dire financial condition, has proposed significant state aid cuts for most school districts in his 2010-11 budget. This loss of state aid will almost certainly result in cuts to school programs or increased property taxes.

In my district, the proposed cut amounts to about $2 million on a $100 million budget - a 12 percent reduction in state aid that would translate into a 2.8 percent increase in property taxes. The only advice from the state is that districts should use their reserve funds, even though this is one-time fund. How ironic that the state's advice, to use a one-shot, is the same approach that has driven New York into its current situation of massive debt and deficits.

We need structural changes, not one-time salves.

Many districts have established legally approved reserve funds, on auditors' advice, to address future employee benefit payouts and unanticipated workers' compensation and liability claims. Using up these funds now may minimize property tax increases this year, but the money won't be available for its designated purposes when the time comes. This money can only be used once, just like a family's personal savings account.

Yes, the state has a real fiscal problem, and without additional federal assistance, it probably can't provide schools with more money. But, then, the legislature must offer structural assistance through specific mandate relief to offset these cuts.

First, the legislature should revise the 1972 New York State Court of Appeals "Triborough" decision, which requires school districts that have not yet renegotiated expired contracts to give employees "step movement."

Teachers (and many other public employees) receive automatic salary increases by advancing up a salary "step" based on their accruing another year of service - regardless of whether they are working under contract.

Certainly, districts should not be able to unilaterally change expired contracts for vital items such as health insurance. But automatic salary increases shouldn't be mandated. For my district, where the contract expires at the end of June, teacher step increases amount to 2.6 percent of teacher payroll, or about $1,250,000.

Next, the state's education law requires each high school to have a full-time school librarian. This law was implemented decades ago to ensure that all high schools provide instruction in library science.

But more and more research is being done on the Internet now, and our school libraries should be allowed to reflect this. More technology is now available in classrooms, with subject-oriented research being integrated into regular classroom instruction, as it should be.

My school district could operate effectively with two school librarians for our four secondary schools. These qualified individuals would manage the organization of the four school libraries and provide staff development for subject teachers to identify appropriate Web sites to further classroom instruction. That would save us $250,000.

Third, state law requires that special education resource rooms not exceed a group size of five during any class period. This requirement originated with the passage of the federal special education law to provide special education students with optimal learning environments.

But New York City has been permitted to have a resource room class size of eight. I know of no research that has established five as the "right" number. If my district were permitted to have groups of eight, we'd save about another $250,000 in salaries.

Relief of these three requirements alone would make up 87.5 percent of the aid Paterson is proposing to cut. Of course, I would rather maintain smaller group sizes in resource rooms, keep full-time librarians in each of our schools, and pay our teachers as much as possible for the important work they do. But difficult times require rethinking mandates so that communities can make hard choices to address these state aid cuts without increasing taxes or eliminating elective courses, raising class sizes, or diminishing sports and club programs.

Long Island communities should be trusted to make the right decisions.