Tell Your State Legislators What You Want for Schools

Leaders of the Broadalbin-Perth Central School District are very concerned about some proposals that Gov. David Paterson has included in his executive state budget. Board of Education members and district administrators have been lobbying state legislators to help them understand how harmful these proposals could be for our district.

If you are a B-P resident or staff member and also have concerns, district leaders encourage you to share those concerns with state leaders.

Reach Out to State Leaders
  • Use our sample letter: Click here to open the Board of Education's lobbying paper. If you wish, you can simply print, sign and send this directly as is.
  • Create your own letter: Read the Board's lobbying points below and use them as a starting point to write your own individual lobbying letter. Legislators' addresses are also listed to the right.

Lobbying points for the Broadalbin-Perth Schools Members of the Broadalbin-Perth Board of Education and administration have been closely following developments on the economic crisis at the state and federal levels. We have a number of concerns about Gov. David Paterson’s executive budget proposal as well as recent actions taken by the governor that have affected school districts.

We respectfully ask you to consider three key requests that will enable us to limit the tax implications of the current crisis on Broadalbin-Perth residents without destroying our academic programs:

  • Follow through on pledged state aid.
    • In December, the governor withheld 10 percent of state aid payments and 19 percent of STAR payments to school districts. Although that aid was restored in January, the precedent that unilateral action set is a dangerous one. Broadalbin-Perth, like most every other school district statewide, relies on promised state aid payments to meet its financial obligations. If district leaders can’t trust the state government to provide expected state aid payments on time, they might be forced to make difficult financial decisions mid-year that could have devastating effects on students.

    • Last year, the governor told school districts that certain categories of state aid – including foundation aid and aid for Universal Pre-Kindergarten – would be frozen at 2009-10 levels for the 2010-11 school year. However, the governor’s proposed 2010-11 state budget now includes a 5 percent reduction in school aid overall. For Broadalbin- Perth, the governor’s proposal calls for an 11 percent reduction in aid – or $1,486,085 less in state aid than in 2009-10. Uncertain and unpredictable state aid payments make long-term fiscal planning impossible for school districts. The governor has said that school districts have large amounts of funds in reserve that should be utilized to make up for any shortfalls in aid from the state. However, the reality is that many districts, including Broadalbin-Perth, have been operating at austerity levels for the past several years and have very little money left in their reserves. In fact, some districts are on the brink of borrowing money to make ends meet – borrowing that will, in turn, cost taxpayers of those school districts more money in the long run as they pay for the interest on that borrowed money.

  • Don’t tie schools’ hands with a tax cap.
    As taxpayers, we all appreciate the concern and desire to keep costs under control, and the concept of a tax cap is certainly appealing. However, introducing a tax cap at the same time that schools are facing significant cuts in state aid puts school districts in a situation that is impossible to resolve without destroying programs. With school districts facing large increases in employee pension payments, health care and energy costs, schools could find themselves over the limit of a tax cap before any other budget items are taken into account. Consider also that, in Broadalbin-Perth, a 1 percent increase in the tax levy raises only $95,000; put in perspective, the governor’s proposed $1,486,085 reduction in state aid to Broadalbin-Perth is equal to approximately 15.6 percent on the tax levy. Skyrocketing operations costs and declining state aid combined with a tax cap that would limit the district’s ability to raise revenue locally would spell disaster for our students.

  • Give schools a way to reduce costs.
    We support the governor’s aggressive mandate reform agenda. While the actual savings to schools that mandate reform would create might be marginal, the time that school districts currently spend fulfilling reporting requirements could be better utilized providing leadership to improve programs and services that directly impact children. We support reducing or eliminating the more than 150 reporting requirements. In addition, we believe the current requirements pertaining to the administrative budget place an undue burden on small, rural school districts such as Broadalbin-Perth. We support excluding health insurance, employee retirement and energy costs from the administrative budget cap.

    Heading into the 2010-11 fiscal year, school districts are facing increases in health insurance costs of 25 percent or more. Although we realize that health insurance is a very complicated issue, school districts that currently find themselves at the mercy of insurance companies need help. We believe it is time to secure a statewide – or at least a regional – health insurance program for all public school district employees.

    We urge the governor and members of the state Legislature to consider our three requests listed above because the severe aid reductions supported by the governor would result in serious harm to the children of Broadalbin- Perth. We hope we will not be forced to significantly scale back our academic offerings, reduce sports programs or increase class sizes. However, all of these appear likely without action by our state government.
State Leaders Contact Information
Governor
Governor David Paterson
State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224
(518) 474-8390
To email, visit http://www.ny.gov/governor and click “contact.”
Senator representing the Broadalbin-Perth area
Senator Hugh T. Farley
Room 706 LOB, Albany, NY 12247
(518) 455-2181
Email: farley@senate.state.ny.us
Assemblyman representing Fulton County (117th district)
Assemblyman Marc W. Butler
Room 318 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-5393
Email: butlerm@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblywoman representing Edinburg and Providence (113th district)
Assemblywoman Teresa R. Sayward
Room 940 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-5565
Email: saywart@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman representing Amsterdam (105th district)
Assemblyman George Amedore
Room 426 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-5197
Email: amedorg@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman representing Galway (110th district)
Assemblyman James Tedisco
Room 933 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-3751
Email: tediscj@assembly.state.ny.us
Leader of the New York State Senate
Senator Malcolm A. Smith
Room 909 LOB, Albany, NY 12247
(518) 455-2701
Email: masmith@senate.state.ny.us
Leader of the New York State Assembly
Assemblyman Sheldon Silver
Room 932 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-3791
Email: speaker@assembly.state.ny.us
Chair of the Senate Education Committee
Senator Suzi Oppenheimer
Room 806 LOB, Albany, NY 12247
(518) 455-2031
Email: oppenhei@senate.state.ny.us
Chair of the Assembly Education Committee
Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan
Room 836 LOB, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-4851
Email: nolanc@assembly.state.ny.us