The pressure on public schools
A meeting at William Floyd H.S. in Mastic Beach on Sunday. Residents spoke about impending budget cuts. Credit: Photo by James Carbone
About 1,000 parents, students and teachers gathered at the William Floyd High School auditorium Sunday to rally against a proposed $9-million cut in their district's state aid next year. They were impassioned in their defense of their schools, and scared. And they'd be shocked to realize that as bad as that funding cut seems, finances in their district and most others are far worse than they know.
Even if the William Floyd School District got that $9 million back in the state budget, raised property taxes 2 percent, and used $8 million in reserves (which it has been tapping, and thus reducing, for the past several years), it would still face an $11-million shortfall in 2011-2012.
William Floyd is a financially challenged district and not every Long Island school budget is experiencing that much stress. But they are all in the same sinking boat, on one deck or another.
Dissecting William Floyd's finances shows that if our solution on education spending is slashing budgets without empowering districts to control costs, through tougher bargaining and fewer required state programs and services, schools will suffer.
Sunday's rally was spurred largely by the district's declaration that it may have to end all sports and extracurricular activities, in addition to eliminating 150 of its 1,250 employees, to balance the books. School districts are notorious for using the "we're canceling football and music" alarm to garner support for increased property taxes, but officials at William Floyd say they're not playing on emotions. The fact that the district laid off 140 employees last year -- even before significant state-aid cuts -- adds legitimacy to that claim.
In the past six years, the William Floyd School District raised property taxes 47 percent and increased its budget 31 percent, but most of that money hasn't gone to new positions or programs. In several of those years, in fact, jobs and services were cut. The hikes went largely to health care and both automatic and negotiated salary increases.
William Floyd's administrators, who are under a voluntary pay freeze, are not unusually well paid or numerous. Its teachers have also made salary concessions, but their pay is still climbing.
Reduced state aid is only the first punch. After the budget is finalized in Albany, the legislature will turn its attention to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's proposed property tax cap. If that becomes law William Floyd's ability to raise taxes 2 percent, creating $1.5 million, would be its only source of new revenue. Faced with health care costs that will jump $7 million this year (and more each year after that) and automatic pay increases, the district would have to lay off teachers and end numerous programs every year.
The combination of the cuts and the cap could badly compromise some districts unless Albany also gives them long overdue help to reduce expenses. With mandate relief, a workable teacher evaluation system that can weed out underperformers and repeal of the Triborough Amendment -- which undercuts the power of collective bargaining by forcing districts to give teachers "step" raises even when they have no contract -- they could succeed.
