LUPINACCI DEMANDS GOVERNOR RELEASE SCHOOL AID RUNS

Assemblyman Chad Lupinacci (R,C,I-South Huntington), along with his fellow Minority Conference members, Tim Kremer from the New York State School Board Association and several superintendents held a press conference yesterday calling on the governor to release school aid runs to school districts statewide. Lupinacci said that school districts have struggled to plan their budget with the absence of school aid runs this year, which are typically provided in January with the governor’s proposed Executive Budget.

“I spent nine years on a school board and every year we received the school aid runs after the Executive Budget was presented,” said Assemblyman Lupinacci, who is a ranking member of the Committee on Higher Education and was a school board member at South Huntington School District and is a professor at SUNY Farmingdale, Hofstra University and Saint Joseph’s College. “We rely on these school aid runs so we can begin the budget process, which takes several months. There is input from students, faculty, staff, superintendents, school board members and the community at large. Every family operates within a budget and needs to know what revenues are coming in. School districts are no different; it’s a serious matter because we are talking about the educational futures of our children. That’s what is at stake here.”

Lupinacci noted that school districts in his area are already feeling the pressure as schools begin crafting their budgets. South Huntington Superintendent David Bennardo said, “There is a certain degree of frustration with this year’s Executive Budget because the lack of state aid runs is having a serious impact upon our ability to responsibly assemble a school district funding plan. Whether one believes in the proposed changes in some of these previously negotiated and approved APPR plans or the call for more charter schools and adaptation of tenure, the simple fact remains that a school district’s state aid should not be used for the purposes of promoting legislation. Our district is taking a cooperative approach and doing the best that we can to plan despite the vacuum that this situation has created. Fortunately, we have strong relationships with local legislators and know in our hearts and souls that they will not allow us to be left ‘out in the cold’ at the end of this process.”

“The governor needs to stop playing politics at the expense of our children and release these school aid runs to help our local districts. They have very important decisions to make which affect millions of students across New York State,” Lupinacci concluded.

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