Baldwin schools still waiting on state aid

The Baldwin Board of Education is used to playing a wait-and-see game when it comes to determining precisely how much state aid the district will receive, as lawmakers in Albany are notorious for passing state budgets well after the April 1 deadline.

This year, however, with Albany still facing a dire financial situation, state legislators may not approve a budget by the time Baldwin residents go the polls on May 18 to vote on the school district's $116.52 million spending plan.

"More times than not, we find ourselves in this absolutely same position of making a best guess [on state aid] based on prior experience ... but it is an estimate, it's a guess, and we really don't have any choice but to go with that," said school board President Mary Jo O'Hagan. "And it's extremely frustrating."

The "prior experience," O'Hagan explained, is the knowledge that the governor's executive budget proposal usually allocates the smallest amount of money to school districts — less than the Senate and Assembly budgets drawn up by state lawmakers, who lobby for additional aid in their legislative districts. In his budget proposal, Gov. David Paterson set aside $25.78 million for Baldwin schools, a $1.43 million reduction from the current year's funding — the first reduction in several years. School board trustees tentatively agree that aid to the district will probably not fall below that total, but they do not expect it to be much higher, if it increases at all.

Some residents expressed concern about not having an official state aid figure before the school district vote. "How can we really make financial decisions if we find out that [the state] came under what you estimated?" resident John Carratini told the board at an April 14 board meeting, though he acknowledged the board's lack of control over the situation. "What happens if [the state] reduces the aid so much that it would increase our tax levy four, five, six percent? Until we get an idea of what's going on, we really shouldn't have a budget."

If the district budget is approved before the state spending plan, there are three potential scenarios once the state budget is finalized.