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.
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.
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.
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 summarizes findings from the first set of fiscal stress scores to be released for school districts. Statewide, 12.9 percent of school districts are in some level of fiscal stress. Within the report, common fiscal and environmental factors are highlighted along with differences for school districts of varying need/resource capacity.
The number of school districts overriding the tax cap has declined each year. In general, school districts’ decisions to override the tax cap were based, at least in part, on necessity. When examining the relationship between fiscal stress and tax cap overrides, we found that fiscally stressed school districts were nearly three times more likely to override the tax cap when compared to school districts that were not designated as stressed.
This report examines the recent history of school aid, highlighting the opportunities and challenges presented by this year’s budget. The first section looks at aid from the school district perspective, followed by a discussion in the context of New York’s overall budget.
The Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) annually assesses fiscal stress in local governments and school districts. This is the fourth annual FSMS scoring of school districts, showing results for the four school years through 2015-16.
New York State requires school districts to report extensive data on their finances, student demographics and outcomes, teachers, school facilities, school climate and other factors. This report offers a regional perspective on some of this data. Looking at the results this way highlights geographic variation in these indicators.
The Office of the New York State Comptroller’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) measures fiscal stress in school districts each year. This report summarizes results of school district scores for the 2016-17 school fiscal year, the fifth annual release of FSMS scores.
