Greetings Chatham CSD Community,
At Chatham Central School District, we take our role as financial stewards of our community very seriously. We are currently keeping a close eye on potential changes to New York State’s Foundation Aid education funding formula, changes that may create a significant reduction in state aid for our school starting with the 2025-26 school year.
The Foundation Aid formula determines how much money (aid) the State will provide to a given school district annually to fund school operations. The current Foundation Aid formula was implemented in 2007, uses outdated data, and does not reflect how dramatically schools, learning, and student needs have changed over the past 17 years.
Important to schools is the “Hold Harmless” provision, which states that a school district cannot receive less Foundation Aid from the State than it did in the previous year. During development of the 2024 NYS budget, Governor Hochul proposed changes to Foundation Aid that included removing the Hold Harmless provision, which would have left many school districts with a significant loss in funding and the need to cut school programs to balance their budgets. Chatham CSD officials, along with Questar III BOCES, the NYS Education Department, and other school leaders worked tirelessly with elected officials to advocate for change that would reduce the impact of the Governor’s proposed school aid plan. In the finalized 2024 NYS budget, adopted in April, the state legislature restored Hold Harmless to allow time for a comprehensive study to examine Foundation Aid and prepare for formula changes in 2025.
With changes to Foundation AId on the horizon and Hold Harmless potentially on the chopping block again, there is a very real possibility that Chatham CSD may see significantly less state aid for next school year. This creates potential for some tough decisions needing to be made during our 2025-26 budget cycle.
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government of the State University of New York is conducting the study and is currently collecting input from school stakeholders such as families, teachers, staff, administrators, boards of education, government officials, education experts, and education advocacy groups. You can learn more about the Foundation Aid study at rockinst.org.
Community members can share input via the Written Comment Submission Form for Foundation Aid Study through Friday, September 6.
The Rockefeller Institute is expected to share its findings with the legislature and the governor by early December. As always, we will continue to monitor developments and will keep you updated as necessary.
Sincerely,
Andrew Kourt
Superintendent of Schools
Michael Chudy
Assistant Superintendent for Business