Governor Kathy Hochul has fashioned a state budget that will profoundly damage rural schools in New York. She had to trim the budget somewhere but why cut foundation aid to the state’s most important function: the education of its children?

North Country Public Radio reported that nearly half the school districts in rural upstate New York face steep cuts. Hochul has proposed the elimination of a “hold harmless” requirement that requires each year’s state aid to be no less than in the previous year. This guarantee has provided stable funding but Governor Hochul says it’s obsolete. The cuts, however, will disrupt planning and inflict damage on the schools’ programs and staffing.

Educators and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are outraged over the way Governor Kathy Hochul is funding schools in her new budget plan.

Her proposed 2024-2025 education budget is for $35.3 billion, including a record $825 million increase for public schools. But it’s being distributed differently than in the past, and for the first time in years, many schools would actually lose funding.

Dozens of North Country districts face that scenario if the legislature doesn’t make changes.

Christopher Clapper is the superintendent of Alexandria Central School, a district of about 460 kids in Alexandria Bay, in Jefferson County.

With increases in state aid over the last few years (they got a 3% increase for two years from Foundation Aid being fully funded, and money from the American Rescue Plan Act) he says they’ve been able to do a lot.  

“That has included buying all student supplies, so that burden isn’t on parents. We’ve had free school lunch for all students since 2021,” said Clapper. They’ve also increased the number of college credit classes in the high school, and expanded their Future Farmers of America (FFA) program. 

But Clapper says he and other superintendents knew they couldn’t count on more increases. “We all assumed that that we would be dropped down to zero and there’d be no growth in foundation aid for ‘hold harmless’ districts,” said Clapper, following the two years of 3% increases. “And that [scenario] is kind of what my colleagues and I around the North Country have been budgeting for.”

Then Governor Hochul released her 2024-25 budget proposal.

“When we saw the numbers that came out, I mean, it was drastically different than a 0% increase,” said Clapper. Instead, it was a 13.2% decrease in aid, a reduction of about $517,000.

Clapper was shocked. He says “if that did come to pass, it would be absolutely catastrophic for this district.” 

The state responds that the new budget reflects declining enrollments in many rural districts.

In a recent op-ed, Blake Washington, Hochul’s Division of Budget Director, wrote: “Instead of asking the question, “how much more money are our schools getting?”; it should be “why do we have a formula that forces us to pay for students that don’t exist?”

He’s referring to the fact that New York school enrollment has declined by about 10% since 2014.

In many North Country school districts, enrollment declines have been more dramatic, as high as a 50% decline in student populations over the last decade. 

In Alexandria Central School District, public enrollment data shows about a 25% decrease in the student population since 2014, from roughly 620 to 460 kids.

But educating students doesn’t happen on a per-pupil basis, said Superintendent Chris Clapper. “If you have a kindergarten class of 20 students, and then that kindergarten class decreases to 17 students, it’s not as though there’s less cost of maintaining a classroom.” 

He says you can’t hire 75% of a teacher, you can’t heat part of a room.

Kristen Barron wrote in the Hancock Herald about the fight against Governor Hochul’s proposed cuts.

Leaders of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) came to Hancock to meet with teachers and students. The Hancock Teachers Association (HTA) has been organizing the Hancock community to protest the cuts. There will be a protest rally in Hancock on March 8. The town, the teachers, the parents and the students are wearing blue to show their opposition to the cuts and their support for their schools.

HCS stands to lose $1.2 million dollars in state aid if the proposed cuts are adopted in the 2024-2025 budget, which is due by April 1. 

“You’ve really stepped up here, and you have the best organized response that we’ve seen,” said Tim O’Brien, who oversees the Southern Tier for the state union. He noted the sea of blue t-shirts which were worn by students and staff on Friday as a sign of unity against the proposed aid cuts.

The HTA has also reached out in support of other area organizations facing proposed cuts such as the Delaware County ARC.

Of the twelve schools in Delaware County, 10 are getting cuts amounting to a loss of $4,919,401.00, according to a fact sheet compiled by HCS. Hancock and Franklin school districts, the smallest districts in the county, will receive the deepest losses, said Asquith during Friday’s meeting. 

HCS has around 317 students. 

Of the $4.9 million cut from the ten county districts, Hancock is shouldering $1.2 million or 24%, says the fact sheet. 

The neighboring Deposit Central School District, which operates a merged sports program with HCS, is facing a 7.4% cut in aid. Downsville Central School District is facing a 33.8 % loss and Sullivan West in neighboring Sullivan County confronts a 17.1 % loss in aid, according to an Albany Times Union map based on data compiled by the New York State Education Department and New York State United Teachers.  

Opposition to the cuts is bipartisan.

In an education budget of $35.3 billion, the cuts to rural districts look like a rounding error. And yet each cut represents lost jobs, lost courses, lost opportunities for rural students.