NEWS

Poughkeepsie, other districts, lose court fight over school aid

Nina Schutzman, and Joseph Spector
Poughkeepsie Journal
The State Education Building is seen through an archway at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

A judge ruled Monday that New York has met its "constitutional obligation" to provide enough aid to eight small city schools, including the Poughkeepsie City School District.

The “Small Cities” lawsuit argued the state wasn't fulfilling its pledge to provide a "sound, basic education" to some New York schools after a landmark Court of Appeals ruling in 2007 ordered the state to provide more aid to New York City schools.

The Foundation Aid Formula was enacted as a result of the 2007 ruling. But in 2010, the state started deducting funds known as the Gap Elimination Adjustment, or GEA, from each school district’s annual state aid allocation to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

All districts have been affected by the GEA, but the "Small Cities" districts have a number of characteristics in common, such as “intense poverty” and low property wealth, according to the lawsuit. Of the eight districts, Poughkeepsie had the highest rate of economically disadvantaged students in 2013-14 — 86 percent.

In 2015, plaintiffs and the state agreed that there was a $1.1 billion difference in the funding eight districts should have gotten under the 2007 Foundation Aid Formula, versus the amount the districts actually did get since 2010. Poughkeepsie's share wasnearly $80 million.

And the "performance of the children in these school districts is undeniably inadequate," said acting Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Connor in her ruling on Monday.

But the state hasn't erred in its responsibilities, O'Connor said. The state has "continued to address the issues raised by school districts ... in the development of the state budget every year" and through "non-fiscal reforms ... the court concludes that the plaintiffs have failed to establish their claim that the state has not met its constitutional obligation to provide the students in the eight small city school districts with the opportunity for a sound basic education."

The state argued that it provides more than $24 billion a year to its nearly 700 school districts, and it not required under the 2007 Campaign for Fiscal Equity case to provide any specific amount of aid to schools.

"As I interpret it, the court is basically saying because that remedy (Foundation Aid) was considered acceptable, it still remains acceptable," said William Reynolds, an attorney for the Small Cities plaintiffs.

Reynolds said they're going to appeal the decision.

The Education Law Center, a New Jersey group that was part of the schools’ legal team, said it was confident an appeal will be successful, but “that success will come too late for the vast majority of students who will go through life without the benefit of their constitutional right to a sound basic education."

Nina Schutzman: nschutzman@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-451-4518 Twitter: @pojonschutzman