Trustee summarizes state aid committee report; ‘hold harmless’ and fund-balance proposals likely to dominate budget season

A board member summarized a recently released state legislative committee report on school aid Wednesday and told the Bay Shore Union Free School District board that the report’s treatment of "hold harmless" funding and proposed fund-balance adjustments will likely dominate local budget conversations this year.

The presenter told the board the committee’s report — described as a wide-ranging, 314-page review — recommends reworking how state aid is calculated, suggests greater use of poverty data to drive funding and offers a menu of options rather than a single fix. "Save-harmless is the story this year," the presenter said, noting that 337 districts across the state currently rely on hold-harmless guarantees, which the report singled out for potential change.

The presenter highlighted several items of local interest: a recommendation that school districts be temporarily allowed to hold up to 10% of their budgets as unappropriated fund balance (up from the district’s current 4%) provided a voter-approved spend-down plan (no longer than five years) and state Education Department approval; potential reestablishment of supplemental categorical or "growth" aid to help districts that experience same-year surges in enrollment or increased populations of English-language learners and students with disabilities; and a discussion of STAR credit adjustments and the property tax cap. The board member stressed the report's complexity and said many recommendations were offered independently of one another, making implementation trade-offs difficult to evaluate.

Board members who spoke agreed the inclusion of English-language learner and special-education enrollment in growth-aid discussions was important for districts experiencing rising special-education costs. One board member said the committee had not been able to fully evaluate interactions between the many recommendations and said the report should be considered a first step.

The board member said some districts' enrollment reporting practices had contributed to the difficulty in reallocating aid accurately, and urged fellow trustees to expect hold-harmless conversations in the coming budget season. No formal board action was taken on the state report; the discussion was informational.

The presenter said she will be attending a New York State School Boards Association meeting that will likely discuss the report further and promised to share significant updates from that meeting with fellow trustees.