Annual Public Ed Legislative Forum
February, 2022
Thank you to our NY State legislators who joined us to discuss public education issues last night on Zoom.We are looking forward to upcoming meetings with Superintendents and Board trustees to hear about school issues in their legislative districts. The panels, ably moderated by Superintendents Jen Lamia and Ray Sanchez on behalf of the CSAs and WPSBA Board Members Rina Beder and Scott Levy, effectively laid out our advocacy priorities and clarified the strong support our local legislators have for public education. The theme of the evening – Ensuring Long-Term Success – came up frequently, with respect to the mental health of our students, and to the fiscal stability of school districts.
We appreciate the time and attention of the Westchester and Putnam State legislators who support public education throughout the region:
Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins (Majority Leader)
Senator Shelley Mayer (Education Chair)
Senator Jamaal Bailey
Senator Alessandra Biaggi
Senator Peter Harckham
Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick
Senator Sue Serino
Assemblymember Tom Abinanti
Assemblymember Chris Burdick
Assemblymember Kevin Byrne
Assemblymember Sandy Galef
Assemblymember Steve Otis
Assemblymember Amy Paulin
Assemblymember Gary Pretlow
Assemblymember Nader Sayegh
All of the materials made available during the Public Ed Legislative Forum can be accessed on the WPSBA website, including the slide deck, Legislative Toolkit, Aid Analysis and Summary of State Priorities.
Highlights of the 2022 Advocacy Agenda
Ensure school funding for the long term:
- Fix the Foundation Aid formula and data now that full funding of the 20-year-old formula is underway.
- Support student mental health with a consistent funding stream available to all students.
- Increase pre-K funding and ensure per pupil allocation is sufficient for our region and inflation-adjusted going forward.
- Ensure district fiscal stability through increased reserve fund limits.
Make commonsense amendments to the property tax levy cap formula:
- Permit carryover of unused tax levy.
- Account for enrollment growth.
- Ensure a minimum 2% allowable growth factor.
- Exempt pension cost increases over 10%.
- Remove negative incentives in the formula – e.g., negative caps, treatment of PILOTs, annual changes in use of reserves or transfer to capital.
Support Special Act public school districts:
- Provide timely interim plus tuition rates.
- Support proposed 11% tuition rate increase and reintroduce tuition parity bill.
- Support NYSED tuition rate-setting study and 5-year reconciliation process proposal.
Ensure the State Education Department is focused on supporting local school districts:
- Eliminate the use of standardized test scores in APPR evaluations.
- Revisit the teacher certification process to improve hiring flexibility.
- Trust educators in SED and local school districts to develop and implement curriculum
- Allow SED to continue to lead in providing resources for individual district DEI initiatives.
- Support SED in exploring multiple pathways to graduation.
- Ensure that the State, rather than local school districts, is tasked with determining substantial equivalency.
Promote reasonable recommendations for establishing smooth district operations:
- Ensure districts receive assistance in transitioning to zero emission school buses.
- Amend Open Meetings Law to permit in person, hybrid or virtual meetings with no requirement for board trustees to publicly state their location.
- Ensure voting machines are available for school district May budget votes ahead of June primary elections.
- Support blanket forgiveness of building and transportation aid paperwork errors and fund the prior year aid claim queue.
- Push for clear, consistent, coordinated COVID policies with defined metrics and implementation support.
Next week, WPSBA will be sending out advocacy packages focused on the issues listed above to help your board and community get involved.
BE VISIBLE.
BE VOCAL.
SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION!
