Governor’s Budget
Looks to Shift Costs
With officials in the Huntington School District already working on how to deal with the expected loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid for the 2010/11 fiscal year, a new challenge has surfaced in Governor David Paterson’s budget proposal.
Buried deep in Mr. Paterson’s budget is a change that would significantly shift responsibility for summer school special education expenses from the state to local school districts. In Huntington’s case, it would mean an additional $600,000 burden on the backs of local taxpayers.
“Currently, the school district is responsible for approximately 20 percent of the cost associated with the summer special education program,” explained David H. Grackin, assistant superintendent for finance and management services. “The governor’s proposal would make us responsible for 82.9 percent of these costs.”
Mr. Grackin said that instead of budgeting $200,000 in the 2010/11 budget “as a transfer to the special aid fund, we would need to budget $800,000.”
Mr. Paterson’s proposal centers on using school district’s foundation aid state sharing ratio as the basis for summer special education program aid. In Huntington’s case, that ratio stands at 17.1 percent.
“If this proposal is enacted into law, it will create a tough new challenge for us and all districts,” Superintendent John J. Finello said.
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