YONKERS, NY – With a call to “Rebuild our Schools,” they asked to be treated like other cities, but what Yonkers school children received was something different entirely.
The state legislature passed legislation this week to create the Yonkers Joint Schools Construction Board, which pays Yonkers less than two-thirds of what other upstate cities receive.
Council President Liam McLaughlin said, “Our state delegations spent months tweaking the language to give themselves more oversight and control and completely missed the boat on the most important aspect of the legislation, the reimbursement rate for the city. We agree with the Mayor that it is a nice first step, but the rate that was passed is woefully inadequate. The parents, teachers, administrators, students and their families that have stood with us to rebuild our aging schools are to be commended.”
Under the legislation that was passed, Yonkers will receive less than a 70% reimbursement from the state for its capital construction, far short of the overall goal for the city of 98% reimbursement that was requested. That amount is on par with what Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, who have undertaken similar school reconstructions, receive from state government.
Majority Leader John Larkin said, “Albany took $110 million from us with the Gap Elimination Adjustment, they left a $28 million hole after the IMA, and then another $11 million hole next year at the expiration of the mortgage fund transfer to the schools. Albany’s efforts to rebuild our schools have once again left us holding the bill. As the parent of four children who graduated from the Yonkers Public Schools I say enough is enough.”
Yonkers, the first municipality to successfully join a Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, New Yorkers’ for Students Education Rights v. State of New York following a vote by the City Council Majority, is currently litigating with Albany to recover the $110 taken by the Gap Elimination Adjustment, or GEA, created as a budget balancing gimmick by Senate Democrats in 2010. Senate Republicans fully restored the GEA this year.
Council member Mike Breen said, “As education chairman I was pleased that the City was able to provide yet another an increase for Board of Education’s budget to $539 million, an increase of $15 million, plus an additional $35 million for school improvements and $5 million for textbooks and equipment. Albany has not done its share, though, and the budget could have been far less painful to taxpayers if we received the additional funding we are entitled to.”
Council member Dennis Shepherd said, “Why has our delegation supported school funding for Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, while shortchanging the people they are supposed to represent?”|
A new public authority created by the legislation would be authorized to borrow up to $2 billion to cover the costs of refurbishing 37 schools and building 3 new schools, making the City’s local share almost $600,000,000, a price tag the Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent has said is unaffordable.
Even though Yonkers is considered to be one of the “big five” school districts, the state requires the City to fund forty-five percent of the cost of education. Meanwhile, the other districts pay no more than twenty percent.
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