Final state budget increases L.B. education aid

Adds $464,000 in funding for L.B. schools

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the final 2014-15 state budget last week, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars more in state education aid than the original proposal.

The budget provides increased state education aid, as well as funding for specific programs — like universal full-day pre-K — and makes changes to the Common Core requirements. But Long Beach Schools Superintendent David Weiss said that although the district will receive an additional boost in funding, he feels it isn’t getting all it is owed, and that the changes to the Common Core don’t go very far.

In Long Beach, the approved state budget provides an additional $464,000 for a total of $19 million in state aid that the governor’s initial proposal did not offer. Weiss said that the added funds came from gap elimination adjustment restoration and increased foundation aid.

Gap elimination adjustment is a formula that was created to take money from school districts’ state aid to close the state’s deficit. And though the 2014-15 state budget begins to restore that funding, Weiss said that the district is still owed almost $3 million dollars in GEA, and at the current pace, it would take six years for Long Beach to recoup the money.

“The state needs to fully fund the gap elimination adjustment,” Weiss said. “That would give us adequate funding and allow us to use state money instead of local money to fund the schools, as had been promised.”

More than 70 percent of the $807 million increase in education aid statewide for the coming school year will be allocated to high-need school districts. Weiss said that when it comes to the formulas that determine such funding, Long Beach is often overlooked because, although it does serve low-income students, the average income and assessed property value in Long Beach make it one of the lowest-needs districts in the state. For example, Weiss said that although Long Beach and other districts may spend the same amount on transportation costs, Long Beach is only reimbursed six percent by the state, while other districts can see a 50 percent reimbursement.

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