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Take Action to Restore Jewish Day School Funding
January 07, 2009

Governor Paterson's proposed budget for the 2009-2010 state fiscal year slashes funding to Jewish and other religious and independent schools. The governor proposes cutting the state's Mandated Services Reimbursement program (MSR) in these schools by $62 million dollars (a 44 percent reduction).

Specifically, the governor proposes eliminating the Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP) along with $55 million in CAP reimbursement to religious and independent schools while maintaining the program for public schools. This important program is intended to ensure that students are safe and in school where they belong. The governor also proposes wiping away millions of dollars of debt the state owes our schools for our compliance with this program in prior years. He also rejects the 34-year standard of paying 100 percent of expenses for programs that the state mandates on our schools (such as test prep, test taking, data collection, etc.). While Gov. Paterson is proposing these drastic cuts to our schools, he is still proposing a $1.1 billion increase to public schools, a significant increase.

We need you to tell the governor and legislators we will not stand to have our families and schools treated so unfairly! Parents of children in religious and independent schools already shoulder a greater financial burden than their public school counterparts. To cut funding to our schools in today’s tough economic times while increasing funding to public schools by over $1 billion is indefensible and risks creating an even greater crisis in Jewish day school solvency.

Please contact Governor Paterson to fight these cuts and to restore the CAP reimbursement to our schools. Feel free to use the pre-written, fully editable message below:

The proposed budget for 2009-10 slashes reimbursement to religious and independent schools by an unbelievable 44 percent, mostly by eliminating the important Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP) for these schools while maintaining it in public schools. The proposed budget also wipes out tens of millions of dollars in debt that the state owes religious and independent schools under the Mandated Services Reimbursement program.

At the same time, the scheduled increase in state aid to public schools is being reduced by only 3.3 percent from $1.8 billion to $1.1 billion. That's still a very significant increase. All children in all schools should be treated equally. To do otherwise is unjustifiable. Religious and independent schools will save the state $8 billion this year alone, but the economic crisis is making their future uncertain. The state should be helping these schools succeed, if not by fairness and right, then if only to prevent catastrophic, budget-busting overcrowding in public schools.

I strongly urge you to restore the reimbursement for CAP as well as the state's liability for reimbursing 100 percent of our schools state-mandated expenses, and, if any reductions in reimbursement are necessary, then they should be proportionate to reductions in aid to public schools.

I hope to hear from you,

Signed.

Governor Patterson can be contacted by phone, by email, or by mail. Please follow this link to the contact portion of his website in order to communicate your concerns.

Governor David A. Paterson, (Phone) 518-474-8390


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