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Borrowing from
Peter to pay Paul
BOCES leaders speak out about proposal to cut expensed-based aid
 A
strongly worded letter from Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego
BOCES District Superintendent Mark Vivacqua to Regent Anthony
Bottar urges the New York Regents to resist any proposals that
create a more regressive formula for state funding of
education.
Vivacqua specifically targeted New York Deputy Commissioner of
Education Kenneth Slentz’s question whether a more aggressive
cost-containment of expense-based aids would free up resources
toward the phase in of the foundation formula.
(Read the entire letter
here)
“The policy question itself is contradictory. Such aids go
disproportionately to small rural districts, which would also be
many of the same districts the phase in of foundation formula
would benefit. The end result would be a more regressive funding
system,” Mr. Vivacqua wrote. “The manner in which New York State
metes out school funding has been shown in study after study to
be among the most inequitable in our nation. It becomes more
regressive every year.”
In 2007, the New York legislature joined then Governor Eliot
Spitzer in enacting historic school funding reform legislation
committing New York State to phase-in a four-year $5.5 billion
increase in foundation aid (basic classroom operating aid).
Since 2007, the state has not met the obligations of the law,
actually cutting or freezing state aid in each of the next four
years.
New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch
publically singled out transportation aid as a target for ‘cost
containment,’ prompting Mr. Vivacqua to explain the “devastating
effect” a loss of this aid would have on rural schools.
“Should the state, for example, reduce transportation aid by 20
percent—something that has been forecast for the past few
years—the result would not be less transportation, it would be
less teachers,” Vivacqua wrote.
Many students already walk an “up to six tenths of a mile on
country roads, with no sidewalks, to meet the school bus at a
central location,” Vivacqua said. “Rural bus routes cannot be
reduced any more, meaning a loss of transportation aid would
lead to cuts in other areas.”
Vivacqua used Mount Markham Central School District—a Herkimer
County district south of Utica—as an example of a school already
staggered by massive cuts. The district’s transportation aid is
currently $1,408,503. A 20 percent reduction would be more than
$280,000.
That district faces “a tenuous future” should aid reductions
continue, Vivacqua wrote. “An additional five to six teaching
positions would be eliminated should ‘aggressive
cost-containment’ be evinced by the aid reduction I have
theorized here.”
Upstate schools have repeatedly spoken out about the state’s
incessant targeting of already underfunded rural schools.
Vivacqua pointed to the Board of Regents’ proposal last year to
reduce BOCES aid, something Governor Cuomo championed despite
his claim to advocate for more shared services and consolidation
of schools. BOCES’ specific mission is to provide shared
services and cost-saving opportunities for school districts.
Cuts to BOCES aid would undermine opportunities for thousands of
students.
“I could not express my concerns better than Mr. Vivacqua has in
his letter,” HFM BOCES District Superintendent Dr. Patrick
Michel said. “Small rural schools already teeter on the brink
because of the inequitable way New York doles out state aid.
This “suggestion” from Deputy Commissioner Slentz could deal a
crushing blow to the rural schools in our counties.”
Mark Vivacqua served as interim superintendent of HFM BOCES
after the death of Dr. Geoffrey Davis in April, 2010 until Dr.
Michel took over in February, 2011.
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