SYRACUSE -- A New York state budget deal reached by leaders Sunday restores $272 million in school aid from the governor's original proposal.
Governor Cuomo originally planned to cut $1.5 billion from schools. The restored funding would benefit certain areas, including New York City schools, chools for the deaf and blind, and summer schools for special education students.
In Central New York, school district officials say they have not received information, yet, about how much the restored funding will help them.
In the Syracuse school district, Chief Financial Officer Suzanne Slack says balancing the budget has been incredibly difficult with all the cuts in state aid. The district plans to cut 585 positions total, and 340 pink slips have already gone out. She says she doesn't know how much the reinstated funds will help Syracuse.
"If those funds are distributed equitably to the districts that need the funds the most, it certainly would be great news for urban centers like Syracuse, but if it's reinstated across the board the way the cuts were initially, it may not quantify to be much money at all for the urban centers," says Slack.
Slack says the district would likely need millions of dollars in additional funding to bring some of the jobs back. She hopes to have numbers from the state by Wednesday.
Officials from the Alliance for Quality Education, which has rallied for education funding and has an office in Syracuse, are not impressed with the partial restoration of education funding in the proposal.
"Governor Cuomo's first budget makes heartlessly large cuts to our schools to finance tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and students in poor and middle class districts will lose the most educationally," said Billy Easton, Executive Director, Alliance for Quality Education in a statement. "Nobody who cares about students is celebrating this budget. Make no mistake about it: this budget will reduce the quality of education in New York."
Tanika Jones-Cole is the lead organizer in Syracuse for AQE and has two children in the Syracuse school district. She says she wasn't happy with the tentative budget agreement.
"We're really disappointed that they're only restoring $272 million," says Jones-Cole. "This is really pathetic."
Jones-Cole says she, and other advocates for education, are heading to Albany on Wednesday to rally for the third time in support of education funding.
A representative from Sen. John DeFrancisco's office says the office has not received exact figures for how much the restoration of funding will help Central New York, but she says she expects the money will go largely toward schools in Long Island and Upstate New York.
