Posted january 22, 2010

District Reacts to Governor's Proposed Budget Cuts - Devastating to South Colonie Schools

The District has recently received the state aid runs with the cuts proposed by Governor Paterson for the 2010-11 school year.

While we all anticipated changes in state aid due to the challenging economic climate, the proposed reduction of 15.7 percent or $3,667,170 for the South Colonie Central School District will have a devastating impact on programs and services for the upcoming school year.

It is also important to mention that for the current school year (2009-2010) the District received no increase in Foundation Aid. This basically means that the District administration and the Board of Education are starting the budget process for the 2010-11 school year with a several million dollar gap.

Similar to last year, the District will develop multiple levels of reductions and cost cutting efficiencies to be prepared for final state aid numbers.

Clearly, many difficult decisions will have to be made over the next several months. We will continue to work with our New York State Legislators for a fair and equitable amount of state aid.

The challenge facing South Colonie and all school districts is to continue to provide the quality of services that the community expects and deserves with diminishing resources. While we believe the Governor’s aid proposal places the quality of public school education in jeopardy, we also know that as a District we will do everything in our power to reduce expenses for our local community while maintaining quality programming for our students.