SYRACUSE -- It's back to the drawing board for many school districts following Wednesday night's passage of the New York State budget.
The $132 billion budget enacted by the Assembly and Senate cuts state spending by two percent, without new taxes or borrowing. In last minute negotiations, Legislative leaders and Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed to restore $230 million in school aid out of an overall cut of $1.5 billion.
The State Education Department has released new figures on how much aid would be restored to each School District.
The North Syracuse School District for instance will be getting back $1.7 million, but Superintendent Jerome Melvin points out the district will still see a loss of $7.2 million overall. Melvin says the district was planning to eliminate 89 positions including 45 teachers, but now the school board will have to decide how to spend the additional $1.7 million.
Fayetteville-Manlius School Superintendent Dr. Corliss Kaiser says the budget restores $249,842 and reduces its overall state aid cut to $16,615,121. She too says the school board must decide what to do with the extra money. She says the District had planned to eliminate 14.5 staff positions and increase the property tax levy by 1.81 percent.
"We saw this coming." Kaiser said. She said the Fayetteville-Manlius School District has been planning for cuts in state aid for the past three years.
The budget restores $5 million to the Syracuse City School District. Superintendent Dan Lowengard says 340 employees will still get pink slips, but the 80 to 90 people who were about to be laid off need no longer worry. Lowengard says we've gone from a "disaster to just bad."
The Superintendent renewed his call for Governor Cuomo to change state aid formulas to steer more money to high needs urban school districts, including Syracuse.
