Speaker: Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer
Brian Fessler: Welcome. Today we're breaking down the foundation aid proposals from the state Senate and Assembly as they recently offered their formal responses to the governor's budget proposals from January. While there is a shared commitment to fully funding the existing formula, both legislative houses add to the Governor's proposal. As we know, the Governor's proposal preserves safe, harmless provisions and guarantees a minimum 1% increase for all districts. The proposal keeps the existing formula exactly as it is, with no updates or adjustments. Both the Senate and Assembly proposed the due minimum increase to be raised to 2% rather than the governor's 1% increase. In addition, both houses are proposing to slightly adjust the existing Foundation aid formula, with a particular focus on student need weightings. The Senate is proposing a new 0.12 weighting for homeless and foster care students, and to increase the waiting for English language learners from 0.53 to 0.60. The Assembly proposed an identical English language learner waiting increase from 0.53 to 0.60, and they also proposed a new weighting for homeless and foster care students, but suggested that waiting should be higher than what the Senate proposed, putting it at 0.65. They further proposed to eliminate the cap on the pupil needs index entirely, likely to help realize the full effect of the higher homeless and foster student waiting. The pupil needs index, or PNI is the collective number of all the various student need weightings. So where does NYSSBA stand? We believe strongly that the minimum foundation aid increase must be at least 2%. Right now, approximately 2/3 of districts would receive the minimum increase. The majority of these districts are high in average need. When you consider that inflation is hovering near 3% and the property tax cap restricts local revenue growth to roughly 2%, a 1% increase in foundation aid, as the governor proposed, is simply too low for too many districts. The cost to the state to nudge up from 1% to 2% is relatively small, but for many districts it represents critical resources. We're also pressing for conversations about updates to the formula to continue. Weightings for homeless students and English language learners are worthwhile, but updates to the regional cost index, making sure the formula reflects the restrictions created by the property tax cap. And improving recognition of the economies of scale for districts with lower enrollment, for example, are critical. Further, we must align the recent court decisions that require school districts to provide special education and related services to resident students with disabilities until age 22, unless they have obtained a high school diploma with our current funding structure. This is commonly referred to as FAPE 22. NYSSBA will continue to push for these important changes. For more in-depth information related to NYSSBA's final state budget priorities, we encourage you to visit nyssba.org/advocacy. There, you will also find NYSSBA's 2026 legislative priorities and information on other important issues we're working on. Further, you can also access our grassroots advocacy page. We encourage you to send our state budget take action email to the governor and to your state legislators. The letter is customizable so that you can include stories unique to your school. And please feel welcome to share this take action opportunity with your broader school community. Thank you for your advocacy.
