WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer released a district by district breakdown Wednesday of the nearly $1.7 billion in direct education funding New York schools will receive from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
President Obama’s plan would add $320 million in new funding for special education and $176 million in new No Child Left Behind money (Title 1) for New York, based on the Congressional Research Service and the Department of Education, respectively.
Chenango County is slated to take in more than $3 million in direct aid to schools. The Norwich City School District’s amount is $844,000; Sherburne-Earlville Central School District, $511,573; and Greene Central School District, $403,632. (See other districts’ amounts below.)
The checks are expected to arrive over the next two months.
Norwich City Schools Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan said the amount was slightly more than what he learned of just this morning, making it difficult to budget.
“It will certainly will help us, but the numbers keep changing. Our latest number was $821,000. That’s not a great difference in the grand scheme of things, but it makes it difficult to budget.
“We have to continue to look at our financial side of education and run an efficient business because the economy is still in a crises stage. We have to plan years in advance,” he said.
Schumer said the amount of stabilization funds for New York State, $3.03 billion, could be distributed from Albany to districts even sooner. The total amount would restore nearly all of Governor David Paterson’s proposed education cuts this year with some left over, the Senator said during a press conference call. Districts would be able to use the funding at their discretion.
“Two things confront us today, a significant cut in state aid and lower revenues to school boards because of the decline in the economy. The stimulus bill deals with both of those issues,” he said. “The direct-to-school aid will boost local school districts with the funds they need as they face historic budget gaps. Laying off, cutting programs and raising school taxes would have been a very, very bad idea.”
The stimulus bill won’t offer money to districts permanently, Schumer said. “It (the package) is a two-year plan that is intended to prevent large increases in taxes and cuts. I hope two years from now that the economy will be humming along and projected cuts this year won’t happen.”
As for the No Child Left Behind program, Schumer said there was a “strong drive” by the Obama Administration to keep up that program in the future.
