March 18, 2026 · Education · 3,438 words · 8 speakers · 28 segments
Good afternoon everyone. Thank you. This is the meeting of the Education Budget Conference Joint Committee meeting. It is Wednesday, the March 18th. We welcome you here for that we're beginning our discussion on the budget here as we've always done and we hope to have some good discussions and come out with a fine budget. I'm very happy to be joined by my co chair, Senator Shelley Mayer. And Senator Mayor, why don't you kick off and find out who's sitting with you.
Excellent. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Education Conference Committee. Senator, I'm Senator Shelley Mayer, Chair of the Senate Education Committee and I'm honored to co chair this Conference Committee with my assembly colleague, Chair Benedetto. Before I introduce my Senate colleagues, I'd like to say a few words as we begin this year's budget negotiations. The Senate is committed to making sure any modifications to the foundation aid formula are responsive to the needs of our students and districts. That includes considering a weight in the formula to provide support for populations of students who are experiencing homelessness and in foster care, increasing the formula weighting for students who are English language learners, and providing at least a 2% due minimum increase to all districts. We'll carefully evaluate these changes and any potential modifications to ensure the foundation aid formula meets the needs of all our school communities. Additionally, the Senate recognizes the importance of early childhood education and is supportive of efforts to expand universal pre kindergarten for all four year olds statewide so that all children have access to full day prekindergarten programs. Other important topics to be discussed in the next few weeks include continuing our support for schools for students with disabilities, the 4201s, 853s, special acts and 4410s, and support for our non public and religious schools which represent an important part of our educational ecosystem. It's my hope that our table can find agreement on these proposals and more to meet the critical moment our schools are facing. With that, I'd like to introduce the Senate members of the Conference Committee. After I turn it back to Chair Benedetto for some opening remarks on content, we'll open it up so that any of our colleagues who wish to make some remarks can do so. So I'm joined to my right by Senator John Lew, Chair of the Senate Committee on New York City Schools, Senator Sheila Bino, Chair of the Senate Libraries Committee, Senator Toby Anstavisky, Chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Senator Monica Martinez, Alternate, and our ranking Member of the Senate Education Committee, Senator Jim Tedesco and Senator Bill Weber, who is an Alternate for the minority. And I turn it back to my colleague, Chair Benedetto.
Thank you, Senator. Yes. To begin with, I would just like to point out some of the highlights of the assembly education budget proposal to enhance supports to students and school districts. They include increasing the foundation aid by $1.4 billion over the current year for a total of 27.8 billion billion. The assembly modifies the Executive's foundation a proposal by raising the minimum increase for all districts from 1 to 2%, increasing the English language learner, the ell factor in the pupil needs index from 0.53 to 0.6, adding a new weight to the Pupil needs index of 0.65 for students in foster care or experiencing housing instability, and removing the cap on the public need. Excuse me. The Pupil Needs index providing also $600 million in class size reduction aid to support New York City's compliance with class size mandates. Providing an additional 100 million for community schools outside of the 250 million foundation aid set aside. Providing $326.5 million to eliminate the prior year school aid claims check. Accepting the executive's $431 million increase for universal pre kindergarten and modifying the proposal by increasing 3K reimbursement for the rest of the state to a minimum of $10,000 per pupil for an additional $20.9 million. Increasing special services aid by $10.1 million by raising the base per pupil aid from $4,100 to $4,300, providing an additional 3% or 3.4 million for private schools for the blind and deaf. The 4,201 schools for a total of $118.3 million and restoring $4.9 million for eight schools. The executive proposed to eliminate. Restoring $15 million for two teacher resource and computer training centers. Restoring increased library aid by $4.6 million and increasing library construction funding by $36 million over the executive for a total of $70 million. Providing an additional 2 million for My Brother's Keeper, for a total of 30 million. Providing $3.1 million for the state Education Department to implement New York Inspires, providing an additional $800,000 for Teach New York and restoring $4 million for educational television and radio. Let me introduce at this time the people to my left. Okay. Who are on today's panel. Okay. Assemblyman Clyde Vanell, Assemblyman Robert Carroll, the Chair of the Libraries and Education Technology Committee. Okay. And then we have Ranking Member Doug Smith is joining us from the Assembly Minority Conference with Assemblymember Patrick Kalunsky serving as an alternative assemblyman. I hope I got that right.
Close enough.
Okay. Okay. Okay. With that, Senator, I pass it back to you and maybe there are some things that some of your members would like to comment on.
Absolutely. I will turn it over to Senator Lew and then we'll go down the line.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I only want to say that education continues to be the highest priority for
state government here in New York, as
evidenced by its prominence in the proposed New York State budget. And I look forward to working with this conference and resolving a budget that will ensure that all New York State school kids get a sound basic education. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much. I'll come back to you, Senator. Scroll. Do not worry. Senator Stavisky, do you have any opening remarks?
There we go.
Yeah. Thank you, Senator, Mayor and Assemblymember Benedetto. As a former high school teacher, obviously I'm concerned about education, and I think the possibilities are endless. I think we've got to. I know we can get together on these issues because we have a great. There's more that brings us together than divides us. So I thank you and let's get this done.
Thank you, Senator Bino, Chair of the Senate Libraries Committee.
Thank you, co chairs. I am hopeful for a few fruitful discussion as we continue to lobby and advocate for funding to come to our libraries. The construction aid, we know that that line is over subscribed each year because the needs of our libraries are great. We know that we need to increase the funding for operating and we know that we need to ensure that that the schools are getting the funding for their libraries as they have not received any increase since 2007. So I am looking forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that we deliver on those needs. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Senator Tedisco.
Thank you, Senator, and welcome to all of you. And thank you for your interest and support for our educational system in New York State. Let me say, you might or might not know I've had a lot of roles over the years and I appreciate those roles. I appreciate working with Senator Mayor as our chairman in this committee. And I don't think I've been prouder or more excited to work at anything as the minority ranker on this committee than that factor on education. I really do think that this committee, if not is, is pretty close to the most important committee we're working on in terms of holistically inside the budget. I mean, if our children and our kids are our future, their education is a big part of their future. And I think our constituents know that. You understand that even in the majority and the minority, this is a representative democracy. We have differences of opinion. But clearly what illustrates the importance of our educational system. The budget from the governor was $260 billion. The governor from the Senate now 269.4.5, give or take billion dollars in a year of affordability. That could be challenging for us. But what illustrates the importance of education? That if you look at the numbers from the governor, from the Senate, from the Yosemite, $39 billion, 0.2, 39 billion4. Holistically, which illustrates the understanding we have for the importance of the educational system. And it's not only Democrats and Republicans, minority majority, who know this is an important part of what we do here. When we. And I, I know I. But I think we. When we talk to our constituents and we talk about education, we want you to fund it. We want you to fund it at high level. Sometimes it's one of the biggest, one or two of the biggest parts of the government. But they also say this. We want test scores to go up. We want a great curriculum, we want good teachers, we want good administration, we want the facilities. We want school boards that understand $39 billion and all those other things. But above and beyond all of that. I know you're looking at me, Senator, but this is an important issue above all the things I've said that are important. You know what probably is most important? A setting where they feel comfortable, safe and secure because you could be the brightest kid in the class. When you're thinking about not the process of what the teacher is trying to teach you, but how you get to the next class when you're worried about somebody putting your head into a locker room, that's a problem. That's a problem for the integrity of the money we're spending on it. That's a problem for the ability of them to learn and digest this great curriculum. And you might have seen lately a report from our controller. The first sentence of that report starts out with parents and highlights the importance of parents. You know, we have from that report an excess of increasing bullying that takes place in our schools. Now, we did the Dignity for All Students act, an important piece of legislation. It says we have to have a plan when an action of bullying takes place in a school and we have to report it to the state education department. You know who we don't have to report it to? The parents. Parents who we say, come to school and volunteer. Get involved in your child's life, meet with the parent teachers, join the pta, but we don't want to notify them or mandate it when an act of bullying takes place with their child and brings them away from the ability, from that billions of dollars worth putting into a $39 billion to not concentrate on what's so important for that foundation we want to build for them. I'll tell you where this emanates from. And the chairman knows and I've talked about this committee. It's a boy named Jacobs, who, 14 years old, went home one day, wrote a note, said, I love you. I'm sorry for what I'm going to do. And he took his life. His parents were shocked. Jacob Travis parents were shocked. They never knew the bullying that was taking place with him. Now, if we believe parents are important in being involved in the budget process above and beyond anything, they should be notified when their kids can't concentrate. And sometimes they say, well, we got a stomach ache. They wonder why they keep saying they're sick, they don't want to go to school, or they wonder why they're skipping school or their grades are going down. We have to protect the integrity of our school system in the safety and setting of it. So I would say we support the numbers. I think we support education. But I think something in this budget should say, yeah, parents should be able to be notified if a faceless bureaucrat at the state level should be notified of a child being bullied. I'll ask you a question and this will be the end of it. Raise your hand anybody in this room who would not want to know their child was bullied in school one day or was the bullier that took place, just raise your hand. I want to know. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Thank you, Senator Tedesco. I turn it back to Chair Benedetto.
Thank you very much. Interesting comments. I have a feeling that possibly my side might want to say a couple words. We'll start with Assemblyman Vanell, and if you have anything that you want to say, sir, I'll be very brief.
First of all, you know, thank you, co chairs, for convening this really important. We have a budget of $260 billion, and education is probably one of the most important parts of the budget that we have to take care of. We have to make sure that we provide a system that prepares our future, our people for the future, to be able to make sure that they can manage and navigate this world. One thing that's really important is that we have to have a New York that provides economic Upward mobility. We have to make sure that the ladder goes down to the, down to the bottom in order to do so. In order to do so, we believe that, you know, education is the great equalizer. So we're going to fight really hard to make sure in this budget that we properly educate all of our kids from Long island all the way up to Buffalo. Really also important that, you know, we provide economic education and financial literacy for our young people so that they can navigate the world and tomorrow. So we look forward to working on this, you know, really excited about, you know, this process and that we make sure that we, you know, close the gap for education throughout the state.
Thank you, sir. Assemblyman Carroll.
Thank you, Chair Benedetto and Chair Meyer. I also want to thank Chair Byno of the Libraries Committee for mentioning the need to fully fund our libraries and their operating and capital needs. What we haven't heard here today is making sure, and in budgets past we have done this is making sure critical investments of operating dollars for evidence based programs for both teachers and librarians so that all students can receive instruction that is rooted in the evidence of reading and the science of reading that is structured, sequential, cumulative. That is essential. We have done that in the past in our budgets. We need to continue to do that so that our teachers and our librarians have the professional development they need and the curriculums that are required to implement evidence based reading curriculum for all students. Thank you.
Thank you, Assemblyman Assemblyman Education Committee Ranker, Assemblyman Smith.
Thank you to Chairs Benedetto and Meyer. As we join today, I think you've heard from everyone that public schools unite us and I want to thank you for allowing us to speak on behalf of the Assembly Minority Conference as we enter the final stretch of budget negotiations. We appreciate opportunities to have these five way discussions in the Assembly Minority Conference. We're glad that both one, house budgets guaranteed every district a 2% minimum increase in foundation aid. That matters. Our students deserve quality education no matter where they live or what their level of need is. But the formula is still broken. The base foundation amount, the number that determines what it costs to adequately educate a child, hasn't been refined since the 201617 school year, which is nearly a decade of stale data driving billions of dollars of aid. The regional cost index specifically, which has been untouched for most districts since 2007, is also not responding to the needs of our district. I will say that we do appreciate the examination of English language learners and seeing how we can drive additional dollars for that. I want to continue conversations about special Education and how districts not only do they have an obligation to meet the need, they want to meet the need. So we need additional dollars to do that and we'd like to continue. We feel that community schools are a really appropriate and great way to drive social service dollars to provide services to families. So we do think that increasing funding for community schools, it's a win win because families are getting access, they're interacting with their children's education. So we think that's a home run. So these are some of the changes in the enacted budget. With that, if I could turn it over to conclude our remarks briefly to Assemblyman Kudzynski for our conference.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak for momentarily. Just to add on to what my colleague Mr. Smith was saying. We all know that money alone will not fix our schools. We must also get the state out of the way and empower our schools to improve student outcomes through local control. Too many state mandates are draining school budgets. Money that should go to classrooms, but doesn't. Chief among them the electric school bus mandate. School leaders across the state have been clear the current timeline is not workable. It's time to listen to them. And just in regards to libraries, let's not forget our libraries. Libraries are the great equalizers. They provide Internet access to families who can't afford it. They open up resources, they that would otherwise be out of reach. And they are the pillars of the communities that they serve. They deserve a greater level of support in the enacted budget and we must deliver for our libraries. In closing, New Yorkers are struggling with affordability. They need an on time budget. They need fiscal restraint and they need to know that their voices are being heard. Here in Albany, we are ready to work together, open and transparently to deliver that for all of our residents. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Thank you, assembly members. All points well taken. Senator, is there any further things that you would like to say?
First, I would like to note the state Education Department is at this table and that the Senate designates Katherine Fennell as recording Secretary. I'd also like to say that on these issues, we have had a very good history in the legislature of working on a bipartisan basis to achieve tangible results for every child in every school, whether it's rural, suburban or urban, whether it's a school for students with special needs, whether it's a traditional public school or whether it is a non public school. We are committed to the children in these schools and the staff, the teachers and the other administrators who provide services. We believe in public education and. But we believe in supporting every child, and I think we have a track record in that area. I'm confident we'll work together under the circumstances of the governor's original proposal, modifying it to reflect our individual aspirations for these children and for schools. And I'm confident we'll come up with a compromise that reflects the best of New York. And I look forward to working with all my colleagues to do that.
Thank you, Senator. And I can only say that we in the assembly share the same ideals that you have. We're trying. Trying to work for the children of the state of New York to be the leaders of tomorrow. That is our. What we want to get to. And we will hopefully craft a budget that will reflect that. Before I end, the assembly would like to designate Ben Levine as our recording secretary for these proceedings. And when we reconvene, hopefully we'll also be joined on my side of the table here by Assemblywoman Razek and plus two alternates, Assemblyman Conrad and Assemblyman Burrows. But having said all this, this will conclude the first meeting of the Education Conference Committee, and we'll meet again at the call of the General Conference Committee. Thank you all for coming.