Editorial

The state budget: some good, some bad

Posted

For weeks New Yorkers heard rumors that when the state’s budget battles finally ended, teacher performance would be measured more effectively, elected officials would be held to higher ethical standards, the grand jury system would be reformed, children of illegal immigrants would be protected, school districts would see an increase in state aid, the minimum wage would rise, more charter schools would be permitted to open, and a hundred other things would be better once another on-time budget was passed, its timeliness exalted above all.

Some of the rumors turned out to be true, and some didn’t. And like most decisions made in Albany in the political madness of March, the budget was passed while only a handful of people knew what was in it.

This year’s funding fights seemed especially contentious after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that a large increase in state aid to schools would be withheld unless districts and teachers’ unions accepted performance evaluation reforms that included a 50 percent weight given to students’ performance on state exams. He decried the fact that almost all state educators are judged effective or highly effective while far too many students leave high school unprepared for college or careers.

So school districts had to develop their preliminary spending plans without knowing the size of a major revenue source: state aid. This uncertainty prevented school officials from assembling educationally sound and fiscally prudent budgets. The state aid a district receives can often mean the difference between cutting and adding programs, staff and services. We hope this year’s action will not set a precedent, and that next year districts will receive preliminary aid figures in January, as has been the custom for many years.

The governor’s bullying also has a negative effect on good government. Withholding school funding unless a third party, the teachers’ unions, submit to his terms borders on political extortion.

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