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Q&A
Foundation aid proposals and state advocacy efforts
4:05:54
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163 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph and Deputy Chancellor Emma Vadehra discuss foundation aid proposals and state advocacy efforts to secure more funding for New York City public schools.
- The state is considering changes that could reduce NYC's allocation by $350 million
- DOE has proposed recommendations, including updating the regional cost index, which could increase funding by a few hundred million dollars
- Additional funding for students in temporary housing is another critical change being advocated for
- Both the Assembly and Senate have acknowledged the need to update regional costs
- The DOE is putting out close to $80 million through the weight for students in temporary housing and over $100 million through changes made to the fair student funding working group
Rita Joseph
4:05:54
New money, got you, got you, new money.
4:05:58
Our colleagues in the state level with the foundation aid and resulting of 350,000,000 less, When we mentioned last in the finance hearing last week that they have identified foundation aid proposals that we're pursuing in the state advocacy.
4:06:17
Can you give us those proposals and their estimated impact?
Emma Vadehra
4:06:23
Yes.
4:06:23
Thank you.
4:06:23
And thank you, chair Joseph, for your advocacy at the state level as well.
4:06:27
As I noted right at the beginning, the state is our largest funder besides the city.
4:06:31
And the fact that at this moment in time, given all the other threats, given the class size mandate, They're looking at changes that would reduce our allocation from what we'd otherwise expect is very disappointing.
4:06:42
So as you know, we put together a set of recommendations last summer that were shared by many in the advocacy community and labor partners.
4:06:51
And we still think those are, and that's what OMB is talking about, we still think that those are some of the critical changes that if the state were to make them, they would ensure New York City got more of the funding we need to support our students and families.
4:07:03
How they chose to choose to make them, there's a million different ways of doing these things.
4:07:08
But I would say one of the things we think is most critical is updating the regional cost index.
4:07:15
There are different ways, and that's basically it costs more to do things in New York City, and the measure that the state is using is decades old and not taking into account how much more expensive it is to do things here.
4:07:29
So there's various different ways you could look at that.
4:07:33
Rockefeller put out a proposal that would be a few hundred million dollars, the increase to New York City.
4:07:39
The regents had actually put out a proposal that would be substantially more than that.
4:07:44
What we saw earlier this week is that both the Assembly and the Senate did a version of that.
4:07:50
They acknowledged that they should be updating regional costs just as they're updating poverty, and those changes move in the right direction.
4:07:58
They still don't fully take into account, we think, the full cost here.
4:08:01
We'd also say another critical change would be the additional funding for students in temporary housing.
4:08:06
We were very glad with your partnership and the partnership of others to include that weight in our local funding formula.
4:08:13
We're now putting out close to $80,000,000 through that weight alone and over $100,000,000 through the different changes we made through the fair student funding working group.
4:08:22
Again, there's different ways the state could look at doing that, but we think if they just modeled on what we're doing it would be well over $100,000,000 for our schools and communities.
Rita Joseph
4:08:32
I told the state that.
4:08:33
I was like I need to copy the city, what's wrong with y'all?
Emma Vadehra
4:08:35
I feel that way all the time.