Comments on: Op-Ed: Exploring ‘What We Know About’ East Ramapo

By: RamapoResident

RamapoResident — Tue, 27 May 2014 21:46:00 +0000

Ersd – we are very much on the same page. However, you omit a few things. The State constitution guarantees education and the items required for education for every child in the state – private or public, legal or illegal, citizen or non-citizen. That’s why the private school kids get the services they do. Second, the state aid is calculated solely based on the number of public school kids which means that services for 21,000 private school kids has to be paid for by those funds. The inequity in the funding formula is killing the public school kids. The services being provided to the private schools is mandated and can’t be cut – it just have to be financed. And I agree with you that since the private schools receive so many services, they have every right to be sitting at the table and on the board. Third, SED and the board have responsibilities to BOTH private and public school kids. That is written into the law as well. If the state would just finance what is required to be paid out in expenses the problem WOULD go away. Changing board members or state takeover wouldn’t change a thing.

By: ersd

ersd — Tue, 27 May 2014 20:58:15 +0000

I agree with what you are saying about the funding but I am also trying to point out that the private school household is actually depleting public school funds because they are receiving benefits greater than they are paying in taxes. Transportation for everyone comes to around 30 million or around 1,000 per student, special ed is budgeted around 40 million. The budget was 210 million, the private school students make up 23 percent, 49 million dollars, of the budget on these 2 items alone (((30m + 40m)* .70)/210)) Im using your number 70. Using the figure of 22,000 as the number of private school students, it works out to that on these 2 items, ER is budgeting 2227 per a private school pupil. So back to my point, I read a lot of posts from private school parents who say I pay private school tuition for 5 kids, why should my taxes go toward paying the public kids education, my point is, if a family has 4 kids, unless they are paying 10k in school taxes, they are not “funding” the public school they are depleting funds from the public school. The public school kids get the short end of the stick on this deal. Think about, ER is budgeting 4k for busing alone for a household of 4 private school kids. Now if everyone in the public and private had a household with the average of 2 kids enrolled in school, the tax dollars collected would be more in line with the benefits received. IMO this is why ER is going down the death spiral path and they need financial help. The number of students per household by both the private and public is very high which makes the taxes per student collected from these households very low. Because of this, there are budget constraints and by law only the public programs can be slashed.

By: RamapoResident

RamapoResident — Tue, 27 May 2014 19:38:53 +0000

ersd – exactly. But you are incorrect as to the cause. Most funding for the education comes from the State based on a very complex formula. In short, you get a certain number of dollars per public school student. However, you must pay for services for all students (this is guaranteed by the State constitution and, quite frankly, is logical – either the state should pay for transportation for all students or none, etc.) The problem is that the State does not provide the finances to cover these services. In a district where the number of private school kids is small, it doesn’t make difference. In ER, however, when the private school kids make up almost 70% of the student population, it is a back breaker. The funding formula has to change to recognize the costs of services to private school kids. That would solve everything. (Note – while I mentioned transportation, which is a big chunk, special ed may be even larger).

By: ersd

ersd — Tue, 27 May 2014 11:58:06 +0000

Ramaporesident, I couldnt care less who owns the property, the fact remains their is an absurd amount of tax exempt property in Monsey and Spring Valley. The law should be changed. You are correct, the public school students education could be gutted to the state minimum and it would not effect the private school student one bit. I think in the case of ER, where the current private school students households as a group do not fund the the public students (their taxes dont cover for what is spent on the per private school student) then the law should be changed to allow cuts to funds budgeted to the private school sector , essentially, ER is losing money on every private school household instead of the opposite which happens in most other districts.

By: RamapoResident

RamapoResident — Mon, 26 May 2014 16:15:16 +0000

If they are legally tax exempt, there is no argument unless you want to change state law. Note that MANY of these properties are actually church properties and have absolutely nothing to do with the Orthodox community.

By: RamapoResident

RamapoResident — Mon, 26 May 2014 16:12:52 +0000

The cuts come from the areas that are not mandated. The private schools lost busing on days when public schools are closed so they did experience cuts as well. You can’t cut items that are state mandated.

If they are illegally tax exempt, it is the town that has to go after them. The district has no say in whether a property is tax exempt so this is a red herring.

By: ersd

ersd — Mon, 26 May 2014 10:50:24 +0000

make that 5 million

By: ersd

ersd — Sun, 25 May 2014 11:45:15 +0000

The cuts come from the public school kids not from the private school kids. Instead of changing the formula, how about everybody pay their fair share. There are over 1200 tax exempt properties in just Monsey and Spring Valley alone, East Ramapo has 3 times as many tax exempt properties as the rest of the county combined. My guess is there is at least 50 million plus out there that could go on the tax roll to restore programs and would reduce taxes.

By: RamapoResident

RamapoResident — Fri, 23 May 2014 21:17:53 +0000

New York calculates state aid based on the number of public school kids – 9000 in East Ramapo. However, you are mandated to provide transportation, text books, special ed, computers and software for private schools with that money as well – 21000 in East Ramapo. So, you get money for 9000 kids and have to spend it on 30000 kids. The only way to make that work is to make cuts. Formula change means providing the $$$ to pay for the services that you are mandated to provide to private school kids by changing the formula to include a factor for the number of private school kids.

By: nishtdayngesheft

nishtdayngesheft — Fri, 23 May 2014 17:14:37 +0000

Kako,

The formula change has been discussed many times already. You are very late to the discussion.

In very brief it has to do primarily with the number of students that are used to calculate the state share of the districts funding.