Reports

This report highlights Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) results for school districts that reported for school fiscal year (SY) 2023-24, which ended on June 30, 2024. Of the 670 districts scored, 22, or 3.3 percent, received a fiscal stress designation. This is six more than in SY 2022-23. The report also includes a look at districts that have experienced chronic fiscal stress over the twelve years since FSMS began and a brief analysis of the system’s companion set of environmental indicators. The environmental indicators show an increase in districts experiencing high teacher turnover and a decrease in those with a declining property tax base.

Chronic absenteeism rates among New York public and charter school students increased sharply as schools transitioned back to in-person learning after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided and remained high with nearly one in three students chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. The rates were higher for high school students at 34.1%, 7.6 percentage points more than elementary and middle school students.

Higher education institutions provide tremendous value to New York’s local economies and the State’s overall economic health through employment, wages, student spending, and more. The sector employed over 296,000 people in 2023, paying wages of around $26.5 billion, but still has over 13,000 fewer jobs than in 2019. Maintaining a vibrant higher education system is critical to New York’s future.

In SFY 2022-23 (April 1, 2022 through March 31, 2023), OSC completed 10 audits of preschool special education providers' expenses submitted to SED. These audits cumulatively identified $7.7 million in recommended disallowances, or more than 13 percent of the total claimed expenses of $57.7 million for the audit period.

New York’s higher education sector is facing challenges, including a looming enrollment cliff, growing costs of attendance, and rising student debt. This report provides critical indicators on the competitiveness of higher education institutions, explains their major challenges, and offers recommendations for consideration. Keeping New York’s higher education institutions competitive by ensuring their affordability, diversity and spirit of innovation and community is important for our State’s future.

This snapshot highlights the Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) results for school districts that reported for school fiscal year (SY) 2022-23, which ended on June 30, 2023. Increases to federal pandemic relief aid and the State fully funding foundation aid kept many districts out of a stress designation. For SY 2022-23, sixteen school districts were designated as being in stress—the second-lowest number since the system was created. The report also includes a look at districts that have been chronically stressed over the eleven years since FSMS began.

This report examines comparative data for 10 rural counties in New York to identify challenges faced by these communities and others like them, as well as opportunities. Population, employment, housing and other trends were considered, and these findings can be used as a baseline from which future trends can be measured. The median age of people living in these 10 rural counties increased at nearly twice the rate of the State between 2011 and 2021 while simultaneously population numbers declined. In some areas, accessing employment, health care, food, educational opportunities and services can be difficult.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced New York’s schools to take on the extraordinary challenge of quickly shifting to remote learning formats. Recent national data show student performance dropped significantly in 2022 from 2019, with New York experiencing even greater declines than the nation in fourth grade math and reading. School districts need to swiftly invest significant resources in helping students that are most in need to make up for learning loss, while pandemic relief funds for education are still available.

In SFY 2021-22 (April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022), OSC completed 10 audits of preschool special education providers' expenses submitted to SED. These audits cumulatively identified $3.8 million in recommended disallowances, or more than 4 percent of the total claimed expenses of $92.8 million for the audit period.

This snapshot highlights the FSMS results for school districts that reported for school fiscal year (SY) 2021-22, which ended on June 30, 2022.  Fewer school districts were scored in fiscal stress in this year than any other year since the System’s inception largely due to increases in State aid and temporary federal aid.

New York’s "Big Five" school districts in New York City, Yonkers, Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester received $8.6 billion in federal pandemic relief funds, but there are sizeable differences in how school districts are using the funds. New York City has directed a smaller share of its total allocation toward addressing the academic impacts of the pandemic. The City, and all districts, can improve reporting linking educational outcomes for all of its students with their use of these historic federal education funds.

This snapshot highlights the FSMS results for school districts that reported for the school year (SY) ending on June 30, 2021. It also discusses the challenges that school districts faced in SY 2020-21, the first full year of operations under pandemic conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the face of education across the country and in New York City, the nation’s largest public school system. During the pandemic, the City had to develop and implement novel remote learning protocols to continue educating students. Extraordinary levels of federal aid allowed the City to overcome these obstacles and implement a number of new initiatives to help students and address learning losses.

New York students with disabilities lost partial or full special education services because of school shutdowns and the shift to remote learning during the pandemic, likely exacerbating pre-existing achievement gaps. School districts should prioritize address learning loss for these students in their re-opening plans.

In 2020, OSC completed 10 audits of preschool special education providers' expenses submitted to SED. These audits cumulatively identified over $4.4 million in recommended disallowances, or more than 3 percent of the total claimed expenses of $139.3 million for the audit period. 

This snapshot highlights the FSMS results for school districts that reported for school fiscal year (SY) 2019-20, which ended on June 30, 2020, which included the period of the statewide mandatory school shutdown from March 18 through the end of the school year. The snapshot also discusses some of the major fiscal stress risk factors posed by the pandemic for school districts in SY 2020-21 (not yet scored).

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on school district operations has been substantial, driving unprecedented changes to many core functions and processes, including the annual school budget vote. For district-level information: http://wwe1.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/research-budget-votes/budget-votes.cfm

In 2019, OSC completed 18 audits of expenses submitted to SED by preschool special education providers. These audits have cumulatively identified almost $11.2 million in recommended disallowances, or almost 11 percent of the total expenses of $103.5 million for the audit period. 

New York’s school districts are responsible for one of the most important functions of government – educating children from kindergarten through 12th grade. Each district must navigate a complex set of State rules and local needs and determine how to fund its programs using a mix of local property taxes and State and federal aid sources. This report provides regional analysis of certain financial and demographic data for New York’s school districts outside of New York City. It presents this information to identify the levels and recent trends in revenue, expenditures, district wealth, student characteristics and outcomes, and special education services that could impact district budgets.

School District Level Data [xlsx]

This report summarizes results of school district scores for the 2018-19 fiscal school year (SY) and compares results to SYs 2016-17 and 2017-18. The report reflects the seventh annual release of FSMS scores. FSMS covers 674 school districts in 57 counties, but excludes the New York City School District.