By Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney (R,C-New Hartford)
(New Hartford, NY – Feb. 9, 2016) Today I would like to take the time to address the devastating problem the Gap Elimination Adjustment is currently having on our schools and my intention to do whatever is necessary to restore funding to our state’s public schools andabove all Upstate schools. Years from now, we will look back at this time, particularly this legislative session, as a historic time for education in Upstate New York. The question, however, is whether we will look back with pride at the actions taken to improve schools for our students, or the idea that our children’s education should suffer in order to offer a short-term solution to budgetary woes.
Although the GEA may have appeared to have had a purpose during the financial collapse in 2008, the Gap Elimination Adjustment was merely a ploy by Gov. David Paterson and the Democratic controlled Senate and Assembly to balance the budget at the expense of our children’s education. It was marketed as a reduction in school district aid across the state, but in reality it was a cancellation of aid promised to school districts by the state in years past. Since the GEA became effective, school districts locally and across the state have lost money and have to make do offering more services with fewer resources while implementing dozens of new and costly state mandates. The Gov. assures us they have been “diligently” working to restore the GEA for every school district affected and propose eliminating the GEA over the next two years.
The governor’s two-year plan to end the GEA is another attempt to walk back his own disastrous policy mistakes while using our students as a fallback – just as Patterson and the Democrats did before him. While being forced to do more with less because of the GEA, our schools are also saddled with the burden of a federally mandated Common Core. Just like the GEA, Common Core and the school aid formula were drawn up by bureaucrats who believe they have a superior understanding of our communities and require serious reform. Time and again, those bureaucrats are proven wrong. Common Core is not only an added burden for teachers in the classroom; it’s also a financial burden for school districts that is exacerbated by the GEA.
In last year’s budget, we restored hundreds of millions in GEA cuts but there is still much work to be done. The Senate has passed and sent to the Assembly legislation that would completely eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment this year and end its devastating impact on state funding to public schools. This bill, as well as many of the Republican Conference’s educational initiatives, would give teachers and students needed relief by eliminating state Common Core testing while fully restoring the GEA cuts. Ending the GEA permanently this session is a top priority of mine and I will not support a budget that does not do so.