CLICK FOR UPCOMING WPSBA EVENTS 

---

HOT TOPICS:

Triborough Blocks Fiscal Sanity, By E.J. McMAHON, Newsday (1/25/2012).
"...So far, Cuomo and most state lawmakers are ignoring this issue -- which might be more easily understandable if we were living in a normal fiscal environment. But as a top school board lobbyist testified before the legislature this week, "local school officials recognize that 'normal' is not coming back. "It's about time our state's leaders recognized the same thing."

WPSBA Executive Director Lisa Davis participates in Journal News Editorial Spotlight Panel on NY State School Reform (1/12/2012). Watch the video.

U Albany's Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government Report "Giving and Getting," (12/2011)
Provides data to substantiate what we already know: New York City and its suburbs pay most of the state’s taxes, and more of it goes to upstate than they receive in return. In the 2009-10 state fiscal year, New York City and its suburbs paid 72 percent of the taxes and received about 58 percent back in state aid for education, Medicaid and other government programs. The rest of the state put in 28 percent and got back 42 percent in state aid. READ REPORT... READ Albany Times Union article

Hudson Valley Schools Seek Voice to Reduce State Mandates, Journal News, (12/9/2011), Region’s top school officials are challenging state legislators to relax costly rules affecting everything from transportation to special education to employee-pension to health-care costs…which account for close to 20% of school budget.
LINK to LHCSS Position Paper and Mandate Relief Recommendations

Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model, New York Times (12/12/2011), An educator from the Scandinavian country that ranks among the world’s leaders in school quality visited New York and explained his nation’s success...
 
NYSCOSS report: “At the Edge: A Survey of New York State School Superintendents on Fiscal Matters.” Eighty percent of superintendents in New York State report their districts cut teaching positions for the current school year, nearly two-thirds increased class sizes and a majority say current budgets will have a negative impact on classroom instruction, extra help for students, and extra-curricular activities.