NY's education funding formula doesn't work for districts like East Ramamo

Regarding "State orders East Ramapo: Hike tax levy by 4.38% and use money on public school kids," July 31, lohud.com:

Being white or being Jewish, even being Orthodox, aren’t transgressions, though New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa seems to imply otherwise.

She recently directed the East Ramapo Central school district board to levy a large raise in the district’s property taxes (based on an obscure 1926 court decision), because it is “home to a large number of students who… are almost all white … and almost exclusively attend yeshivas … [while the district’s] public school students, by contrast, are overwhelmingly students of color.”

Wondering what race or religion have to do with taxes? The relevant facts:

The East Ramapo School District has had fiscal problems for years. New York State funds school districts based on their public-school enrollment. In most districts, the existence of private schools in the district has little impact on a district’s public schools, as the share of students who attend nonpublic schools is negligible.

But the East Ramapo district is an outlier in that way. As Rosa notes, the vast majority of its school children attend private schools. Those are the “yeshivas” to which she refers. The area is home to a large population of Orthodox Jews and, while most are far from wealthy, they insist on sending their children to schools that teach Jewish texts and values. Those schools — most of which struggle to pay maintenance, salaries and much needed of late security services — are dependent on tuition payments and private donations.

They are, however, entitled by New York state law to things like textbooks and transportation. And so, a portion of the state allotment to the district is directed to the private school kids, like their textbooks and their bussing as well as other state required services. It has to.

But, because the state funding formula ignores private schools, the district’s public schools, after the mandated transportation costs are funded, are left in the lurch, with inadequate funds to maintain their facilities and programs.

That is a terrible disservice to public school students — whatever their race or religion.

And it is born of the state’s formula for the allocation of funds to school districts, a formula that simply makes no sense for private-school heavy districts like East Ramapo.

Rather than tackling the problem at its source, though, Rosa, after an appeal was filed by a parent backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union — the same NYCLU who has consistently called the district a “Jim Crow” district conjuring up the worst racial stereotypes — has decided to just put a Band-Aid on the festering sore, a raise in the property tax levy of 4.38% — atop a 1% increase previously approved by the school board. Her “solution” that is unfair to all the district's residents – white, black, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and whatever other ethnicity or religion anyone might imagine — makes some difference here.

Rosa’s order has to go before the school board, which, reasonably, will likely vote against the increase, but a state monitor is expected to veto the board’s decision and implement the increase, which will almost surely lead to litigation in the courts.

What should be obvious to all is the need not to overtax all homeowners in the district but rather to deal with the source of the budgeting problem — the state’s formula for school district allocation, which is ill-suited to East Ramapo and other private school-heavy districts. Moreover, the proposed levy of 4.38% is estimated to increase revenue by approximately $6 million, while the shortfall caused by the flawed formula is estimated to be closer to $20 million annually.

As to what race or religion have to do with the issue here, the answer is … nothing. At least, that should be the case.

Commissioner Rosa: You are responsible to care about all of the district’s schoolchildren, regardless of their color or faith. Recognize, and deal with, the real problem in East Ramapo and use your bully pulpit to lobby Gov. Kathy Hochul and the legislature to correct this flawed formula.

Rabbi Shragi Greenbaum is director of the Rockland Regional Office of Agudath Israel of America.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY's education funding formula doesn't work for districts like East Ramamo