New York Governor David Paterson’s proposed budget for 2009-2010 includes cuts that will have substantial impact on nonpublic schools in the state, including yeshivos and day schools.

The proposal’s reductions in aid to the state’s public schools amount to 3.3% of current allocations, but the proposed changes that will affect nonpublic schools amounts to fully 44% of current aid.

That aid largely comes from the Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP), which requires schools to keep careful records of students’ attendance of classes and to have policies in place to deal with absences and truancy.  The state is required by law to reimburse nonpublic schools for costs associated with implementation of the CAP policy.

The governor’s proposed budget would eliminate CAP entirely, which would deprive New York nonpublic schools of more than $54 million dollars of constitutionally permitted aid.  What is more, reimbursement for other mandated services – for which the nonpublic schools should be entitled to $87.5 million – would also be limited by the governor’s budget to approximately $80 million, only 92% of the schools’ actual costs.

Thus, the total loss nonpublic schools would suffer as a result of Governor Paterson’s proposed cuts in the mandated services and CAP programs would exceed $60 million.  As Jewish school students represent some 23% of the state’s total nonpublic school population, the total loss to New York State yeshivos would be approximately $15 million.
 
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel of America’s incoming executive vice president, expressed grave concern for the implications of the proposed budget.  “If the budget Governor Paterson is proposing is ratified by the legislature,” he said, “our community’s educational institutions, already under severe strain from the larger economic downturn, will be deprived of what, for many of them, is a major part of their own operating budgets.”

Agudath Israel, he continued, intends to “explore every avenue” in the hope of staving off the proposed cuts.

Among those avenues is reaching out to the governor to make the case for retaining CAP; making the legal case for the state’s obligation to reimburse mandated services fully; and working with the state legislature and Board of Regents to prevent the cuts.

In the interim, Agudath Israel’s director of education affairs, Mrs. Deborah Zachai, participated Wednesday in one of a series of ongoing education workshops in Brooklyn that her office had organized for representatives of New York City yeshivos and day schools; close to 90 administrators attended Wednesday’s workshop.  The Agudath Israel representative apprised administrators of the recent developments and their potential impact.

Says Mrs. Zachai: “The news was met with deep disappointment and concern, as you might expect.

“But there was an understanding, too, that what we have to do at this time is make whatever hishtadlus we can to prevent the cuts from coming to pass.  The yeshiva community is fully committed to doing whatever is necessary in this regard.”

(YWN Desk – NYC)