New York State Owes Public Schools Billions

In 1993, parents sued New York State for severely under funding public schools (Campaign for Fiscal Equity "CFE") and parents won!

In 2006, The New York State Court of Appeals ruled that NYS is violating students constitutional right to a "sound and basic education" by not properly funding the schools as needed. NYS committed to paying a 5.5 billion (BILLION with a "B") to public schools statewide over a 4 year course from 2007 to 2011 (using a formula called Foundation Aid). Between 2007 and 2009, $2.4 billion was paid out to various districts state-wide, under the then current NYS Governor, Eliot Spitzer.

Then we experienced a recession, and all funds were frozen. Our new and now current Governor Cuomo made deep cuts to the the education budget.

13 years later, our public schools still need this money. We are still fighting for this money and we need everyone's help. Below are links to documents to give you all further information about this. The documents also give the website for the organization, AQE formed from this lawsuit. Go on their website to join this fight. You can look up your school to see how much money NYS owes your school, you can send emails, mail letters and make phone calls to your elected officials to let them know you know about this money NYS owes our public schools and we want them to fight for this money. Please print these attachments and distribute to your community members. Help us spread the word about this, bring it to your PTA/PA, SLT and other parent meetings. The Senate is in session now, they are proposing, discussing, voting and passing bills and will finalize the NYS budget by the end of March. We need to make sure the budget includes the Foundation Aid to fully fund our schools as NYS was ordered to do!

Just for our knowledge as District 4 schools, D4 stretches across Senate & Assembly districts. Below are the Senators and Assembly persons and the MONEY their schools are owed in their districts.

Senator Brian Benjamin NY Senate District 30 is owed 36 million
Senator Josè Serrano NY Senate District 29 is owed 17 million
Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez Assembly District 68 is owed 58 million
Assemblywoman Inez Dickens Assembly District 70 is owed 22 million

NYS OWES TAG $862,199!

The PTA Secretary went to Albany on Wednesday February 12 to fight for this money and met with the New York State Assembly Speaker, Carl Heastie to discuss funding our schools in New York City and met with Senator Jose Serrano to discuss funding our schools in District 4 specifically!

The following are links to the above-mentioned documents:

• CFE_one pager (2 sided) information sheet - this provides detailed information about the money NYS owes our public schools (English)

• CFE_one pager (2 sided) information sheet - this provides detailed information about the money NYS owes our public schools (Spanish)

• Fully Fund our School Template letter - this is a script, you may edit and personalize as you see fit, this is what you will say when you call your elected officials, you may read this as the message to give to your elected official when calling, you may print this out, sign it and mail it to your elected official, you may copy and paste this message and email it to your elected officials and you may copy and paste and "submit" as a message directly on each elected official's website

• Last but CERTAINLY not least. There is an Advocacy Letter. This letter needs to be completed and signed by you. We need all parents, school admin and all community members to complete and sign one of these. The letter is default addressed to Cuomo, you may leave his name and add more names. I need this letter returned to me, you can call or text me and I will meet with you to retrieve it from you or you may scan and email it to the PTA Secretary.

Please visit AQE's website for more information, subscribe to receive notifications, follow them on social media and click to find out who your elected officials are and HOW MUCH MONEY your school is owed!

Do not hesitate to contact the PTA Secretary to discuss further.