Reports

School districts can use EBALR moneys to make cash payments to employees for accrued leave time due to them when they leave school district employment. OSC certified the excess EBALR funds that school districts had reserved, but could not legally use, so district officials could put these moneys to productive use to pay for operating costs. 

This report briefly describes that the average allowable levy growth is 3 percent, rather than the 2 percent voters may be expecting.
All tax cap elements, as reported by school districts to the Office of the State Comptroller, are provided in the accompanying tables. 

Tax Cap Elements by County [xls] | Tax Cap Elements by Region [xls] | Tax Cap Elements by School [xls]

The Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) is among the nation’s largest state‐ sponsored, need‐based grant programs for student aid.

The 2011-12 Executive Budget proposes a $1.5 billion net cut in State aid to schools, which would result in a 7.3 percent decrease in aid to districts statewide, translating to a 2.9 percent reduction to total general fund budgets.

District by District report - pdf

This report describes the fiscal challenges facing school districts in New York State. As with other classes of government, school districts have struggled to maintain fiscal balance in the midst of rising costs and declining economic conditions.

Regional Profiles

In New York State, higher education is a major industry. The State’s 269 degree-granting colleges and universities employed 266,110 people and paid out $13.2 billion in wages in 2009.

New Yorkers plan to spend up to $192 million for back-to-school supplies this year, with approximately 64 percent of this spending ($123 million) driven by school supply lists from their children’s schools.

School districts across New York state, including New York City, face a potential funding gap of at least $2 billion when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding runs out in 2011-12 unless federal aid is renewed or replaced by State aid.

View a district-by-district breakdown of ARRA funding - .xls

The State University of New York (SUNY) system represents an excellent value to its many students, regardless of resident status. The State-operated system enrolls well over 400,000 students at its 64 campuses, of which 13 are university centers, 21 are colleges and 30 are community colleges. Tuition dollars combined with State and county revenues support the $10.7 billion SUNY budget.

Each year in New York City, more than 100,000 public and private school children between the ages of 5 and 21 are referred (by teachers or parents) to the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to be evaluated for their needs for continued or new special education services.

This report provides an overview of their finances, including data for School Districts fiscal years ending in 2004 and 2005.

The “Big Five” cities of New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers either are, or have recently been, fiscally distressed. This affects their dependent school systems, which already face significant challenges associated with the socio-economic composition of their students and the age of their facilities.