School funding — don’t celebrate yet!

CAUTION!The legislators in Albany snuck an impressive $11.2 billion five-year funding package for New York City school construction into the budget accord reached in the wee-hours of Tuesday March 28, 2006.
ALERT!They allocated only $450 million in extra school operating aid — a record for Albany — but nowhere near the appeals-court-suggested-amount of between $4.7 billion to $5.63 billion.
RED LIGHT!The State budget must be accepted by Governor George Pataki, who has publicly stated that the proposed $112.4 billion plan is too pricey for his liking. He has called for “making changes, significant changes to have a budget that’s acceptable to me.” He had wanted to see total spending of only $110.6 billion.
DEF CON 4!Once passed up to Pataki, he will have ten days, excluding Sundays, to review the budget blueprint. Remember that the governor can exercise line-item vetoes over sections he feels are too expensive or that he doesn’t agree with. Ominously, Pataki has stated flat-out that the bonding deal for New York City school construction funding would set a bad precedent in the use of state debt. The lawmakers can then try to override Pataki’s vetoes.
STOP SIGN!Some of the governor’s pet projects got the ax in the proposed budget. Lawmakers eliminated Pataki’s plan, approved recently by the courts, to convert Camp Pharsalia in rural Chenango County into a “pervert prison” for confining sexual predators who are deemed too dangerous to be returned to the streets after they serve their sentences, and they restored hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid cuts Pataki had sought.
ROUGH ROAD AHEAD!The fighting, squabbling, finger-pointing, name-calling, blame game on this budget is just beginning folks!
Mayor Michael Bloomberg pushed hard for the construction money and while it appears he won most of that funding, the financing involves borrowing and issuing bonds through the state Dormitory Authority and the city’s Transitional Finance Authority. This is a debt plan designed to prevent a school bond act from going before the state’s voters. The last such issue was soundly rejected by voters in 1997.
FLASHING YELLOW! Neither Bloomberg nor Schools Chancellor Joel Klein would commit themselves just yet to the building of the 21 school construction projects, nine of which are in Queens, that they suspended pending funding from Albany.
Bloomberg and Klein’s caution should set the tone for all of us - the money is not here yet. The money, borrowed as it may be, is not in the city coffers.
Stay tuned, cross your fingers and hope for reason to prevail!