PINE BUSH – When it comes to school budgets, a very important phrase to keep in mind is "Unfunded Mandates." In talking to educators, this issue comes up again and again. For example, Roesanne Sullivan, Vice President of the Pine Bush School District Board of Education, points to the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA) as a prime example of the situation.

"When this was first instituted, it was pledged that the federal government would supply 40 percent of the funding. Now, years later, New York State gets only 17 percent federal funding for this very expensive legislation. The state doesn't pick up the shortfall, either, so the local taxpayers do.

"Somebody has to, these services are necessary. But they were mandated by the very governing body which has since refused to take care of its financial responsibility."

Superintendant Phil Steinberg points to another example of the way school districts wind up on the losing end of things. "The SAVE legislation: Safe Schools Against Violence in Education. It came up partly as a way to protect teachers and also to protect children. Schools have to have a SAVE room, where students who've been ejected from a class can go. That room has to be monitored and kept safe. Who pays for this? The local district.

"It's not that it's a bad idea. Students and staff should be protected and safe, but it's another thing that adds to the total cost of a school district."

Then there's testing.

"The amount of required testing has more than doubled since I first became a school board member," explains Sullivan. "This means we have more consistent and focused data to work with, but it costs us more money, and that money doesn't accompany the mandates to test more. For example, we estimated that we paid over $40,000 last year to substitute teachers while our regular teachers graded tests. Somebody has to pay for that, and I feel that it shouldn't just be the local taxpayer."

Steinberg agrees. "Something like No Child Left Behind is a real burden in the district. There are more and more tests mandated by the federal government, but no money provided to pay for them."

"That's the important point as far as taxpayers are concerned. When we see a politician, be he or she the president, the governor or just our local representative, proudly proclaiming some new piece of education legislation, what we're really seeing is a new tax increase, unless that legislation comes with money attached, which is very rare."

But that isn't the only way that local districts get skinned by the state and federal governments. Steinberg explains the tricky example of "lower grade class size reductions."

"Research has shown that small class sizes can be very important in the early grades, in K, in grade one, and grade two. So school districts were encouraged to reduce class sizes and hire more teachers. Federal money to pay for this was included in aid packages that went to the state. Fine. But then the state decided to fold that money into Foundation Aid, which covers a lot of other things. Okay, it was still getting to the school districts, not a problem — until the state then cut Foundation Aid, so now the money for the small class sizes is gone. And either we increase class sizes at those low grade levels, when we know that it's important not to, or we bite the bullet and find the money ourselves."

Sullivan says, "All educators face this issue every day. Whether in the classroom or administering the books, there is constant attention to costs. So the issue of funding is very frustrating. It's been tough to lobby state officials on this because the money comes from the Federal Government. I feel that our state legislators should be lobbying the Federal Government to own up to this gap in funding. Over the years we've gotten baby steps towards funding things like IDEA, and we should have already moved mountains."

"We can't do this until the taxpayers hold both tiers of government — state and federal — responsible for their part."

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