Finance Expert Says Late NYS Budget Wreaks Havoc on Schools

Education finance expert Dr. Rick Timbs says a late New York State budget puts school districts across the state in a very tough position. Timbs is the Executive Director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium in Syracuse and is President and owner of R. G. Timbs Inc. of Whitesboro. He explains that school districts, by regulation, must make their budget public before the end of April and they rely on the state budget to finalize their own budget.

"In about a month by May twentieth is actually the date they vote, but what has to happen is all school districts must have their budgets approved for the vote by April 25th week from this Friday, so that means if there's any changes to the state budget in between
then, they've got to reconvene, recalculate their entire budget, and then try and come up with a budget in probably a couple days," said Timbs.

Timbs says right now districts are working on hypotheticals. "So right now there's a what they call the governor's run or the executive budget proposal. The problem is, the executive budget proposal has a number of variables in it. For instance, the governor's proposed some changes in the foundation aid formula, three in particular. So, that changed some of the dynamics and some of the amount that the districts would get.
But the rest of the state aid formula, all the rest of the aids are based on actually data submitted back in October," he said. "So what happens is we've got three sets of data
and school districts are trying to figure out which one to use in their budget."

Timbs says legacy expenses such as retirements and health insurance are causing stresses to school district's finances, and so are the many unfunded mandates that handed down to districts from Albany, placing districts in a position where they may need to raise taxes above the tax cap.

"The tax cap is kind of limited in many ways. And if you challenge the cap, you've got to get a 60% plurality to win the vote. So people are trying to avoid that like the plague," said Timbs. "At the same time, what happens is they're starting to use their reserves
simultaneously to try and maintain as many staff as possible because the federal money isn't there. But as we all know in our savings accounts, once you start using
it up to keep operating expenses going, sooner or later that money goes away.
So what happens is they're looking out five years and they're thinking
to themselves, okay, we need all the aid we can get now. And, you know, I don't know if we can keep all the staff that we have now. And of course, you know, we understand, I
think all school districts understand, we're spending other people's money, so we have to be careful with it," he added.

Get our free mobile app

What About Teacher Salaries?

Timbs was asked about members of the public who say teacher salaries are too high and that educators enjoy plenty of vacations and they get their summers off.

"Well, that's not true with all teachers. For instance, I know a lot of teachers, I mean, I used to correct papers on weekends and nights and everything else. And uh but the thing is, it's a tough job. If you do a good job as a teacher when you leave at the end of the day, you're exhausted. And those breaks, the kids need the breaks as much as the teachers believe it. It's a fatiguing thing. And education is very tough," said Timbs. "You know, kids are coming from different backgrounds. There's a lot going on, a lot of family drama, you know, of course, we're talking all about the use of cell phones and the distractions where the kids are at. Teaching reading and math, social studies, you know, economics and things like this are not always what the kids had in mind. They'd rather have recess.
So it's not as easy as it sounds. I would say anybody who thinks it's easy, they should join a profession and give it a shot. And I can tell you, I had 28 student teachers, many of them washed out."

New Yorkers will vote on their school districts budgets and board member elections on May 20.

Listen to the Timbs interview via the Keeler YouTube page below.