Sen. Jack Martins Discusses School Aid

Seventh District State Senator  noted that he is working on handling unfunded mandates and discussed the New York State aid restoration to schools on a conference call Thursday morning.

Approximately $272 million in state aid was restored in this budget, Martins noted. In this version of the budget, funding for 4201 schools, such as the Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf, will not come out of the local schools' pockets, which was slated to happen in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal. Martins said that this change with the 4201 schools is another $98 million in savings.

Over the last 10 years, state aid has increased to the schools by almost 51 percent, Martins said.

The  was going to lose $827,245 in state aid in Cuomo's proposal and had $473,549 restored, according to Martins' spokesman.

Martins described himself as the "point person" on putting together a package that will be unveiled as early as next week that deals with "structual changes to unfunded mandates on local governments."

"We've always mentioned that the mandate relief has to go hand-in-hand with any cap and I believe that we have the ability to follow up on our commitment that we made when we [passed] the cap," Martins said.

There is also a discussion about how to handle the rising pension and health rates, Martins said; these costs are saddling many local school districts with a hefty expense.

"I don't know that there necessarily going to be an exclusion for pension costs and heath care costs," Martins said. "I think there may be opportunities for pensions and health care to be addressed either collaboratively, perhaps that we'll be able to come up with alternatives that will not only take the expense off certain local governments or allow for more equitable distribution of the burden when it comes to non-wage compensation including pensions and health care."

Adina Genn contributed to the reporting.