By JOSEPH KELLARD
"I think the aid proposal is too low and the state is not paying their share," said Superintendent of Oceanside Schools Dr. Herb Brown.
The proposed aid for Oceanside is $10,367,471, a 0.1 percent decrease from 2001-02. For Island Park, the aid is $1,376,837, a 2.3 percent increase. Figures for both districts exclude building expenses.
But Edward Price, superintendent of Island Park Schools, a district that receives a total of $1.2 million in state aid, said the additional $31 thousand Pataki proposes for Island Park this year would not be enough to meet rising costs of teachers' salaries, health insurance and other items.
"Island Park roughly has a $21 to $22 million budget, so the aid has no real impact," he said. "Don't get me wrong, if we get $31 thousand more, that allows us to do more for kids. But you have to look at this in a totality."
For Island Park, part of that totality is the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). In order to be cost efficient, Price said, a relatively smaller school district such as Island Park needs to use BOCES for services such as a technology support staff and a director of facilities for health and safety, but Pataki's proposal freezes BOCES aid.
"As we spend more with BOCES, theoretically we would get back our aid percent. Now, Pataki is saying no matter what you spend you're still going to get what you get last year. To me, that is a very difficult thing for a small school district," he said.
Oceanside's total state aid is about $11 million, which helps finance its $82 million budget. Local property taxes would fund both the difference and the $12 million the district will need to generate to compensate for the deduction under Pataki's proposal, Brown said.
In the past, state aid had risen proportionally with enrollment and costs increases, Brown added, but the governor's proposal changes this tradition.
"We continued to get a mandate and we continue to work with our students so they all can pass the state regions exams and get high school diplomas by reaching the higher standards. But yet the state is not giving us any money to pay for it," he said.
Traditionally, school aid is provided by different grants based on numerous formulas. These formulas are based primarily on ratios in income and property wealth and enrollment and attendance figures. These and various other factors are run through computers that determined the figures for local aid.
In his executive budget last year, Pataki proposed Flex Aid, which lumped 13 of the different aid grants into one package. This system offers a new means of calculating all the numbers, a new amount of money derived from this calculation, and a set amount of funding for each school district. As its name suggests, it offers districts the flexibility to spend their aid as they see fit.
Last August, a baseline or "bare bones" budget was passed that enacted the funding provisions through the governor's Flex Aid proposal, but not the actual proposal itself.
"Our primary reason for passing the baseline budget was to provide the school districts with some certainty as they were setting their budgets and local property tax rates," said Tom Dunham, spokesperson for Senator Dean Skelos. "It provided the school districts with the same amount of money that the governor provided through his flex aid package, but we didn't adopt a new flex aid funding formula into law."
Durham said that when you compare the funds that districts would have received through traditional funding formulas with the Flex Aid proposals, some of the school districts did not get as much money as they would have under the general funding formulas.
The senate was expected to pass a supplemental budget in September that would have added over $900 million to the aid budget, but following the terrorist attacks "we obviously couldn't provide that kind of money," he said. "Last year was an anomaly. Everything was turned on its head."
This year, Pataki again proposes that Flex Aid become law.
"The governor's proposal basically says you're going to get the same thing next year that you're getting this year," Brown said. "It's based on the formulas from two years ago but without increases. And now everything is lumped together. Now, no matter what you spend, you're still getting what you got two years ago."
Brown added that although local property values have risen in recent years and the district spent more money on special education and BOCES this year, these factors are unaccounted for in Pataki's proposal.
"Every year it's a new ball game, so it's hard to say how long this will go on," he said.
"I understand the state was having economic problems before Sept. 11 and it is trying to rebuild New York," Price said. "But I would say education is the top priority of the state, should be and must be. I guess my priorities might be different than George Pataki's."
