Q&A: What you should know about NY’s school-aid formula

ALBANY – New York spends $24 billion a year on its schools, but how the money is spent will be a key battle next year in the state Legislature.

School leaders said they expect lawmakers to revisit the funding formula when the Legislature returns to the Capitol in January.

The formula was first established in 2007.

“Wherever it is appropriate, we have to update the formula,” MaryEllen Elia, the state’s education commissioner, told the USA Today Network’s Albany Bureau.

INVESTIGATION: Why NY’s school-aid formula is flunking

DATABASE: Check your district’s per pupil aid

Here’s three questions and answers about the state’s education funding:

Why should I care?

If you care about your property taxes, they how state aid is dispersed should matter to you.

School taxes make about 60 percent of a homeowner’s annual tax bill. So if your district gets more state aid, it could alleviate some of the tax pain.

State aid is critical for rural and urban districts with limited property-tax bases.

For example, the Kiryas Joel district in Orange County gets $35,000 per pupil in state aid.

Rye in Westchester County, a wealthy district, gets about $1,000 a student, state records showed.

What’s the problem?

The school-funding formula has been derided as fostering inequities in the state’s nearly 700 districts – which has among the wealthiest communities in the nation and some of its poorest.

New York spends by far the most in the nation on its education system, and the funding formula aims to address the disparities in spending.

But by using antiquated data and allowing for political influence, the formula isn’t working as it was intended, critics say.

In fact, school aid outside the funding formula – which is based on need, wealthy and enrollment – has outpaced the growth of money sent through the formula.

“We have to figure out a way in the formula to get those high-need districts funding through the foundation aid,” Elia said.

Why is this important now?

New York’s school aid was cut during the recession, and districts were hit with cuts through what was known as the Gap Elimination Adjustment.

Paying districts back the GEA money -- about $2 billion statewide – was finally wrapped up this year.

So schools are hopeful additional state aid in future years will flow through an updated and improved funding formula.

“Overall, while state school aid has grown since 2011- 12, most of that growth has taken place outside of the foundation aid formula,” a report from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in March found.