Who to Believe? That is the Question

This post is primarily for NYS residents. In a short time you will be asked to vote for your public school budgets and you, if you are like me, get frustrated when "facts" are presented from both sides of an argument that simply don't jive with each other.

So, in the NYS school tax arena we essentially have 2 competing entities; the schools and political interests that provide financial support to them (state and federal).

Issue 1: School's Fund Balance (often referred to its reserve or "savings account")

Recently, both the Governor and NYS comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released comments about schools unwillingness to use this money (made by Paterson), and schools improper use of their fund balances (DiNapoli).

For your consideration:

Schools in NYS are legally allowed (as determined at the state level) to maintain a 4% (of their total annual budget) reserve (savings). This, among other things, helps schools pay for the same "emergency" types of things that you and I maintain a savings account for.

Things like leaking roofs, broken furnaces, and substitute teacher costs (in a year where flu and flu-like illness created a greater demand than anticipated) are all mitigated by this reserve.

Additionally, schools, like individuals, carry a credit rating. If schools do not maintain a reserve and then have unforeseen costs they are forced to run in a deficit situation and then suffer a poorer credit rating.

This poorer credit rating in turn means that the school cannot get the best interest rates on loans (typically taken when schools go into building projects) and the subsequent cost of not having a reserve is far greater in the long run.

So, in effect our Governor has called out schools for being essentially responsible with their monies.

In addition, DiNapoli, in his comments about schools' fund balance, essentially said that "many" schools in NYS improperly used their fund balances. What DiNapoli did not give is a list of those schools.

To say that this was in poor character is an understatement, but perhaps not unexpected if DiNapoli's intent was to cast suspicion and doubt upon all schools.

Suppose that say, 10% of NYS schools improperly used their fund balance (this would be approximately 75 schools of the nearly 750 public schools in NYS ... it's a few more than this, but after this current year, this is likely to decrease given the state of support the schools are scheduled to receive).

Ask yourself this, how would you feel if you had followed the letter of the law and then were blanketly indicted based on the actions of a few? Perhaps a better question is why DiNapoli, or other state representatives might cast this suspicion onto schools.

More on this in a moment...

Issue 2: The amount of aide provided to schools

The Governor and the state legislature approve the amount of aide received by schools as a part of the NYS budget. In my own school the impact of recent decisions at the state level could result in as much as a $4,000,000.00 deficit between the revenue that we have and the costs we incur. We make this up by either increasing the taxes of our community, or by cutting our budget.

Perhaps in a year when the leadership of the state have to make difficult decisions about who does and does not get anticipated levels of support, it is easier to guarantee one's political future by casting suspicion upon those who would decry the lack of support given. In other words, the Governor and Comptroller, by weakening the public trust in schools, politically leverage themselves against the fallout of not providing funding to schools. If you, the public, believe that schools aren't being fiscally responsible than you are less likely to place trust in your same school, its leadership, and support the budget you are asked to vote for.

WHO TO BELIEVE?

In New York State you do not have the opportunity to vote for the state budget;
you do not have the opportunity to vote for your town budget;
you do not have the opportunity to vote for your federal budget;
you do not have the opportunity to influence the salaries and benefits structures of your state elected officials;
you do not have the opportunity to vote for the fees that you pay for any number of public services;

...but you do, in one place only, have opportunity to approve one public entity that relies upon your support and that is schools.

Furthermore, your school, like mine offers the following; we will show you a line item of every expense we incur (including the salaries and benefits of our staff).

So, when you find yourself stuck in not knowing where to place your trust you DO have a recourse. You can take a look at how schools are spending their money. You can even tell us where you think we need to do better.

AND you can tell us because we HAVE TO LISTEN. We listen because we need you to vote positively to support our budgets.

Perhaps we should ask why it is we cannot vote for other public services...