3-18-26 Budget Conference Sub-Committee Meeting: Education - Mar 18, 2026

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you. This is the meeting of the Education Budget Conference Joint Committee meeting. It is Wednesday, 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 Mayer why don't you kick off and find out who's sitting with you

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. The Assembly modifies the Executive Foundation aid 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 million by raising the base per pupil aid from to providing an additional 3 or 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 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 Kolonski serving as an alternative Assemblyman. I hope I got that right. Close enough. 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.

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 in resolving a budget that will ensure that all New York State school kids get a sound basic education. Thank you, Madam Chair.

There we go. Yeah, thank you, Senator Mayer 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.

Thank you, co-chairs. I am hopeful for a 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 oversubscribed 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 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, 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 Mayer 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. dollars. 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 70, 39 billion dollars, point two, 39 billion point four holistically, which illustrates It's the understanding we have for the importance of the educational system. And it 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 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. when we're at 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 it 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 we're putting into a thirty nine billion dollars 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 Jacobs 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've 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 and 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 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, if you have anything that you want to say, sir.

Thank you, sir. Assemblyman Carroll.

Thank you, Assemblyman. Assemblyman Education Committee Ranker, Assemblyman Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak 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 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.

First, I would like to note the State Education Department is at this table and that the Senate designates Catherine Fennell as the reporting 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, 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.