"What's the plan?"
That's the question education-finance expert Rick Timbs asked legislators about funding schools in New York.
And in a presentation lasting nearly 90 minutes, Dr. Timbs answered the question himself:
There is no plan.
About 10 legislators or aides were among the almost 1,400 school supporters from 49 districts at Columbia High School in East Greenbush Thursday night.
The session, titled "Your Schools in Fiscal Peril: Running Out of Time and Options," was intended to attract the attention of media and legislators to schools' dire financial straits.
More than 30 representatives from Cobleskill-Richmondville, Schoharie, Middleburgh and Sharon Springs--along with Assemblyman Pete Lopez--were in the audience.
They heard plenty from Dr. Timbs, a retired teacher, superintendent and BOCES superintendent who now runs a school finance consulting business.
He charged that Albany has short-changed schools for years on state aid, forcing them to cut programs and staff and use savings in fund balances to meet their budgets.
And, trying to get along on less, schools have examined sharing services, consolidating and merging, Dr. Timbs said.
"No matter how much you share or consolidate, it's not enough to solve our fiscal problems," he said. "And then you've got educational problems."
Albany has reduced aid repeatedly and then given it back in fractions, Dr. Timbs said. He used an example of paying his nine-year-old granddaughter, Gracie, $10 a week for chores.
Gracie got $10 the first week, then $8 the next. When Gracie balked, Grandpa said, "It's $8."
The next week, Gracie's sum dropped to $7, but then, in an apparently magnanimous gesture, received $7.25 after that.
Albany's treatment of schools is the same, Dr. Timbs said.
"All they did was decrease the decrease," he said.
"Schools are getting along with less money than they had five years ago. Does that make any sense?"
The result is that schools cut essentials for a budget acceptable to voting taxpayers.
"Without programs and staff, what's the purpose of schools?" Dr. Timbs asked. "We're getting to the point where the math is impossible."
He also railed against the Gap Elimination Adjustment, which is money Albany withholds from school aid to close the state budget gap, and bullet aid, the extra money legislators present to schools in their districts.
"You mean if my senator is a Republican and my assemblyman is a Democrat, I'm somebody, but if they're not, I'm nobody?" Dr. Timbs asked, referring to the legislative majorities handing out bullet aid.
He touched on the tax levy cap but argued that if state aid was what it should be, the tax cap wouldn't be a problem.
"The tax cap's not the enemy," Dr. Timbs said. "The aid's the enemy."
As one solution, Dr. Timbs urged legislators to re-write the state's aid formula, not so that it takes money away from wealthy districts but so that it gives all districts what they need.
"I don't want to be treated like everyone else, I just want to be treated fairly," he said. "Let's give people what they're supposed to have."
Dr. Timbs also suggested that funds in Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget for teacher incentives and pre-kindergarten be applied instead to reducing the state's budget gap. Doing so would mean the state would withhold less aid from schools.
The audience also heard stories of cuts and lack of aid from superintendents in Schodack, Guilderland, Schenectady and Cohoes.
The thrust of the meeting was to begin a lobbying effort to convince legislators that schools are in trouble.
Organizers have an advocacy workshop planned for Monday at Niskayuna High School to give advice about contacting and lobbying legislators.