New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s second executive budget, unveiled on January 22, includes $54.9 million to cover reimbursement for funds expended by the state’s nonpublic schools to comply with the requirements of the state’s Comprehensive Attendance Policy (CAP) during the 2006-2007 school year.  CAP stipulates the number of times a school must take attendance and requires that a principal or administrator review the attendance records so that appropriate action can be taken regarding unexcused absence, lateness or early departure.

Under New York law, nonpublic schools are entitled to reimbursement for their costs in carrying out a wide array of state mandates. CAP is one of those mandates for which reimbursement must be made.

Last year’s budgetary allocation to cover the CAP reimbursement to nonpublic schools for school year 2005-2006 was $39.9 million, a figure arrived at by the State Education Department through a formula it developed for that purpose.  However, several months ago, SED recognized that its calculations were erroneous, and that the correct figure based on its own formula should have been $15 million higher.

In an effort to avoid having to pay the additional $15 million, some state officials insisted that the CAP formula be “recalibrated” to yield the original lower figure of $39.9 million.  Advocates for nonpublic school communities, including Agudath Israel of America, protested this effort directly to Governor Spitzer, calling it (in the words of Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s executive vice president for government and public affairs) “a fundamentally dishonest approach toward making good on the State’s statutory obligation to nonpublic schools.”

In his new budget for fiscal year 2008-2009, the Governor pointedly included the higher figure, refusing to countenance what Rabbi Zwiebel characterized as “a cooking of the books.”  The Agudath Israel leader praised Mr. Spitzer for his “principled stand.”

The $54.9 proposed reimbursement level for CAP is in addition to the Governor’s proposed $87.5 million reimbursement for other mandated services performed by nonpublic schools, bringing the total proposed mandated services budgetary allocation to $142.4 million.  Children in Jewish schools across the state comprise some 20-25% of the total state nonpublic school population, so the Jewish school share of these reimbursement funds would be approximately $30 million.

Rabbi Zwiebel did express disappointment in the budget proposal’s omission of a $1000 per student tuition tax deduction for parents of nonpublic school students – an innovation Mr. Spitzer proposed in last year’s budget, but which failed last year to gain legislative support.  “While we recognize it is unlikely that the legislature would go along this year with the same proposal it rejected last year, it is unfortunate that Governor Spitzer did not include his tax deduction initiative in his new budget.  Whether or not it would have passed, it would have sent an important message that the Governor still embraces the important concept of tax relief for hard-pressed tuition-paying parents.”

Among some of the other items in Governor Spitzer’s budget proposal that will benefit nonpublic schools are funding for computer hardware (an innovation first proposed by Governor Spitzer last year); academic intervention services; textbook, software and library materials aid; and learning technology grants.  The budget, moreover, recommends increasing funding for universal pre-kindergarten programs, some of which are affiliated with nonpublic schools.

“There is much in this proposed budget that reflects the Governor’s appreciation of the important role nonpublic schools play within the larger educational panorama of New York State,” said Rabbi Zwiebel.  “Yeshivos and other nonpublic schools owe him a debt of tremendous gratitude.”