Queensbury Union Free School District

SUPPORT MANDATE RELIEF

Public school districts have faced very challenging budget seasons over the past few years, and the trend is not stopping. The cost of doing business continues to rise, while unfunded or underfunded state mandates make it difficult for school districts to rein in costs and close serious budget gaps. During the Queensbury community forums to discuss the 2011-12 budget many community members raised questions about mandates and what can be done to change them.

One step is the establishment of Governor Cuomo’s Mandate Relief Redesign Team, charged with reviewing unfunded and underfunded mandates and looking for ways to reduce the costs associated with them. The following links will give you more information about these efforts:

Mandate relief website

Mandate relief preliminary report (3/1/11)

Mandate relief team results (12/28/11)

The New York State School Board Association has also been active in looking for solutions to the current budget situation and prepared a Four-Point Plan suggesting ways to "absorb state aid reductions without laying off teachers, cutting programs or harming students" that was submitted to Governor Cuomo on February 22, 2011:

NYSSBA's Four Point Plan

New November 1, 2011: A coalition of education, local government, business groups unveiled a six-piece plan for significant mandate relief.

The partners are The New York State Council of School Superintendents, the New York State School Boards Association, the New York State Conference of Mayors, the Associated General Contractors of New York State (AGC), the Business Council of New York State, Inc. (BCNYS), Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY), National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), New York Farm Bureau (NYFB), New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR), Unshackle Upstate (UU), the Westchester County Association (WCA).

Let NY Work press release

Let NY Work agenda

Another step is to contact elected officials and ask them to support mandate relief. The Queensbury Union Free School District’s superintendent and school board members have contacted legislators to discuss meaningful mandate relief. We also encourage our community members to contact their representatives to voice their opinions about mandate relief.

Some suggested areas for discussion are:

• Reform the Triborough Amendment, which keeps all aspects of expired union contracts in place – including scheduled pay increases – during collective bargaining.
• Enable regional collective bargaining, currently prohibited under the Taylor Law. This would give school leaders more leverage with unions while saving considerable time and money.
• Create regional health insurance pools to leverage district buying power and standardize benefits and contribution rates for all public school employees.
• Provide pension reform for more predictability of employer contribution rates, possibly requiring all public employees to contribute more toward their pensions.
• Streamline New York’s tangle of special education requirements, many of which far exceed federal requirements and significantly drive up education costs without demonstrating a corresponding improvement in education outcomes.
• Oppose shifting millions in summer school-age special education costs from the state to school districts. It is unfair and unwise to create new unfunded mandates at a time when schools are already facing significant state aid cuts, rising costs and intense pressure to hold down property taxes.
• Exempt schools from the state’s Wicks Law, which would provide long-term capital and debt service savings to school districts and the state.
• Streamline education reporting requirements that require each school district to submit roughly 150 plans and reports annually – an average of three per district, per week.