School superintendents are starting to plan next year's budgets, and things are looking up after Gov. Kathy Hochul revealed her proposal for school aid Monday.
That's because Hochul followed through on the second year of a three-year phase-in that will fully fund aid known as "foundation aid," which pays for most of the operations in a school district. It accounts for more than half of the total $2.1 billion increase in school aid.
Gov. Kathy Hochul's schools plan includes a $2.1 billion increase in aid that translates to a 7.1% increase, for a record total of $31.3 billion in aid to education.
"We're thrilled," Cleveland Hill Superintendent Jon MacSwan said. "It's been a lot of challenging years with challenging decisions."
Proposed foundation aid is up as much as 30% in some local districts. And no district in the state would get less than a 3% increase on that line.
More than one-third of districts in Erie and Niagara counties would receive overall increases of 10% or more, with the average increase at 9% over what they received this year.
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Cleveland Hill is on track for an increase of 18.7% in total aid, which includes an increase in foundation aid of 17.12%.
"We're hoping to give some of that back to the community," MacSwan said.
He said the goal is to reduce – or, at the very least, freeze – the tax levy, while addressing issues such as the social and emotional well-being of students. And the district wants to prepare for the future.
"Challenging financial times will be with us, again," MacSwan said.
"This is probably one of the better packages we’ve seen in a long time," said Richard Timbs, executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium, an organization of more than 400 public school districts.
The governor proposed a total spending plan of $216.3 billion, up from the $208.9 billion budget enacted last April, and it includes enormous increases in education and health care.
Timbs, a former superintendent of Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES, usually spends the days after a governor's budget proposal talking about how school districts could use more money. But not this time.
"They're paying everybody like they said they would," he said of the state school aid. "I think the fight has been worth it to help these districts out."
He said some of the figures in the state aid "run," which includes a list of funding categories for each school district, will change, since they are based on documents sent to the state in mid-October.
Foundation aid was created in 2007 to distribute state funding in an equitable way, considering each school district's wealth and student need. But it was never fully funded. Hochul announced in October that the state had reached an agreement to settle a court case and the current funding formula would be used to fully fund school districts.
Many think the formula should be updated.
"One hard lesson we learned about what happens when there's a lack of investment is how our health care system crumbled under the stress of the pandemic," Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
"We don't think it measures poverty accurately," Timbs said.
He said, for example, outdated data from the 2000 Census is used in the foundation aid formula.
Niagara Wheatfield would receive a 4.32% increase in foundation aid next year under the budget proposal. Superintendent Daniel G. Ljiljanich said he is hoping the foundation aid category will be fully funded by next budget season as promised.
"Fully funding the foundation aid doesn't mean, to me, stopping at the number that it was supposed to be at years ago," Ljiljanich said. "They need to fully fund the foundation aid and make sure there’s appropriate additional aid put on top of that to keep up with the cost of living."
It is not every year that groups around the state praise the governor after seeing the executive budget proposal for schools.
 The office of State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli calculated the inflation factor at 4.7% for school districts and municipalities whose fiscal year ends June 30, 2023.
Some years, they're already lobbying state legislators to increase the aid, which often happens.
But Hochul's proposal for a 7.1% increase in school aid is garnering few complaints, and some plaudits.
"We applaud Gov. Hochul," state Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa and Board of Regents Chancellor Lester W. Young Jr. said in a press release, adding that the proposal "prioritizes the needs of New York’s students, parents, schools, and communities."
The New York State School Boards Association said in a statement it is "pleased to hear the first details" of the plan. The group also "applauds the governor's focus on children and their needs."
New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta did not applaud the governor, but he said in a statement that the proposal "makes some important commitments" toward meeting the ongoing needs of pandemic-battered public schools, colleges and hospitals.
