In conjunction with CBC’s testimony today at the last Rockefeller Institute Foundation Aid hearing, our new report, Sustainably Supporting a Sound Basic Education, Part 2 provides additional analysis and recommendations to ensure New York State’s school aid funding is well-targeted based on student need and local resources.  

This report demonstrates the potential impact of reallocating $447 million of expense-based aid and the $3.3 billion School Tax Relief (STAR) program in proportion to Foundation Aid.

• Reallocating Library, Textbook, Software, and High Tax aids proportional to Foundation Aid would shift $135 million to the 268 districts—40 percent of districts—with the lowest wealth, including New York City; and 
• Reallocating STAR program funds proportionally to the current Foundation Aid formula, rather than based on local property wealth and tax rates, would double STAR aid—from $501 million to $1 billion—to the 201 lowest-wealth districts (bottom 30 percent), while aid to the 203 wealthiest districts (top 30 percent) would decrease from $942 million to $336 million. 

Furthermore, to better account for local circumstances, the Foundation Aid formula, and other formulas when appropriate, should: 

• More accurately measure a district’s capacity and willingness to raise revenue, and use the actual local contribution when it is higher;
• Adjust the expected local contribution to account for a locality’s other spending obligations—including State mandates such as Medicaid, and those driven by economic or social factors such as poverty and unhoused residents; and  
• Ensure that indices of need and regional cost are updated regularly, are sufficiently granular to capture variation but is appropriately streamlined. 

School aid reform is critical not only to direct these funds to where they are most needed for students to get a quality education, but also for the State’s fiscal future. Our initial analysis and seven preliminary recommendations are detailed in CBC’s July 2024 report.