Lavine Responds to Republican Rally on Proposed Education Budget

NORTH SHORE, NEW YORK – Assemblymember Charles Lavine (D-North Shore) has issued the following statement in response to today’s Republican political rally on Governor Hochul’s preliminary education budget:

While I am pleased that my Republican colleagues want to portray themselves as standing for public education, each of them enthusiastically supports Donald Trump who has vowed to disband the Department of Education, increase charter schools, implement school vouchers, force public elections of school principals, end teacher tenure and change American law to enable the wealthiest to be excused from paying taxes they owe if they donate to private schools.

Their program is an elaborate recipe for disaster, which I for one take personally. If not for public education, my brothers and I would have received no education whatsoever. My parents were never in a financial position to pay for private education for us.

These are the facts: Over just the last three years, it was the Democrats who reduced our school property taxes by driving an additional $20 billion in public education. No governor of our state has invested more than Kathy Hochul. For this year alone, the governor’s proposed education budget of $35.3 billion includes an additional $825 million over last year.

This is another fact: Our State Constitution requires that the governor, the Assembly, and the Senate engage in budget negotiations. Governor Hochul’s budget was released two weeks ago. Since then, joint budget hearings have been conducted by the Assembly and the Senate, taking the testimony of citizens affected by it.

In the 20 years that I have played a role in negotiating New York’s budgets, I have learned that our final adopted state budget will provide the necessary funding to support our Long Island public schools, which happen to be the best in the world.

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Assemblymember Charles Lavine represents New York’s 13th Assembly District in Nassau County. He presently serves as Chair of the Judiciary Committee and is a member of the Committees on Codes, Ethics and Guidance, Insurance and Rules. Lavine previously served as Chair of the Election Law Committee, Chair of the Committee on Ethics and Guidance, co-Chair of the New York State Legislative Ethics Commission, and as Chair of the bipartisan Taskforce that produced the Assembly Speaker’s Policy on Sexual Harassment, Retaliation and Discrimination. Lavine is also President of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Jewish Legislators and a member of its National Board of Directors.