Legislative Support Requests
On behalf of the students of the Syracuse City School District, I want to take a moment to commend and thank you for securing more than $150 million in federal stimulus funding for Syracuse and for your statutory commitment to fully fund Foundation Aid. The Legislature deserves tremendous credit for their efforts to allocate and deliver unprecedented financial support to schools during the pandemic. As a result of your commitment to fund public education, the students of the Syracuse City School District are on their way to academic recovery and success. Thank you for believing in our children and showing your support with financial resources long-term. With this being stated, the increased needs of children post-pandemic will continue long after the stimulus funds have expired. Therefore, your continued advocacy and financial support is crucial.
Consider the following support requests for 2024-25 to provide additional help to SCSD students:
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Executive Budget Proposal
Reject Proposal to Use Multi-Year Average of Inflation
This reduces the starting point of the Foundation Aid Formula for all school districts, and cuts approximately $250 million across all school districts in New York State.
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Update the Foundation Aid Formula
As you investigate how to revise the Foundation Aid formula, we strongly encourage the State to utilize updated census and poverty data and increase weightings for SpecialEducation and English Language Learners (ELL) for equitable funding. Logically, this is the year to update the formula to ensure that State funds will be allocated to students who need it most when the federal stimulus funds expire at the end of this year.
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Increase School Health Services Aid
School Health Services aid has not kept pace with student health and medical needs for years. This gap has widened as a result of the ongoing pandemic. SCSD funding of $1.08 million covers the cost of 15 nurses, yet we employ more than 50 nurses and 30 health aides at $6.84 million to provide essential services to all schools in the City of Syracuse including Charters and private schools. Nurses are critical to the daily operation of our schools and should be fully funded.
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Increase Special Services Aid (CTE)
Provide Special Services Aid for 9th grade students enrolled in Career & Technical Education courses. The current formula only funds students in grades 10, 11 and 12. Additionally, increase the cap on the per pupil rate by 10% for inflation.
Data is currently being collected and reported on 9th grade CTE students and this investment will provide opportunities for students to be college and career ready.
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Increase Instructional Materials Aid for Inflation
These funds provide critical access to educational materials and the rates have not increased since the 1990s. We ask that instructional material aids including library materials, textbooks, software, and hardware aid are increased for inflation and that resident enrollment is used instead of attending enrollment to support all students in the district.
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Limit Charter School Approvals and Freeze Charter Tuition Rates
Limit Charter School saturation to 10% in urban centers and discontinue SUNY Charter authorizations. This allows for school choice while limiting the financial burden on public school districts. In Syracuse, Charter School enrollment has increased to 10% in recent years costing nearly $33 million. Students enrolling in Charter Schools are coming from every school and grade level in the District, making it nearly impossible to offset additional tuition expense with reductions in existing District programs and classrooms.
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Advance Payment of Supplemental Charter School Transitional Aid to the Current Year
Supplemental Charter School Transitional Aid is paid on a one-year lag. If the State would pay this aid in the current year, it would provide a one-year pick up in 2024-25, and then will help with cash flow thereafter. The District is mandated to pay Charter Tuition prior to receiving Foundation Aid (or risk having it intercepted) and then must wait a year before receiving Charter School Transitional Aid.
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Adopt Federal Purchasing Threshholds
Doing so will reduce the administrative work involved in the purchasing process and will expedite ordering timelines, which is critical in these times of supply chain disruption. Federal Uniform Grant Guidance CFR 200.320 requires competitive bidding for purchases exceeding $250,000. Under current General Municipal Law 103, Districts must competitively bid Goods over $20,000 and Public Works over $35,000. Quotes would still be obtained up to the $250,000 limit to encourages competition but with far less administrative processing. SCSD is larger than many cities and municipalities so has much larger dollar value purchases.
SCSD would benefit tremendously if GML 103 was amended to reference federal bid limits or higher SUNY purchasing thresholds were applied to the Big 5.
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Remove the Community Schools and C4E Set-Aside Restrictions on Foundation Aid
The Community Schools and Contracts for Excellence (C4E) set-asides restrict how SCSD uses $38.2 million of the general- purpose Foundation Aid to a narrow range of specific services and programs, and places significant additional reporting requirements on the District. Funding for these services and programs should be allocated through a separate state aid allocation and should not restrict a portion of general-purpose Foundation Aid funds at a time when flexibility in responding to post-pandemic challenges is critical as the pandemic federal stimulus funding has ended.
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Fund Another Round of Smart Schools Bond Act (SSBA)
The pandemic emphasized just how crucial technology has become to education. SCSD doubled the number of devices deployed district-wide and added staff and enhanced infrastructure to support the additional bandwidth, safe internet access, number of devices, training for staff and students, hardware, and software to ensure that virtual learning could be supported. By funding another round of SSBA, the State would provide funding to replenish devices and sustain infrastructure for the future of education.
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