- East Ramapo faces a deficit and cash-flow problems that could lead to insolvency, officials warn.
- A bill proposing a ‘fiscal control board’ for the troubled district failed to get a vote.
- The bill is politically sensitive, its sponsor admits.
- Regents Chancellor Lester Young called the bill “the only way to put this district on a solid footing and get it back to offering the educational opportunities all of its students rightfully deserve.”
The New York State Board of Regents called on the state Legislature to come back in session and approve a fiscal control board for the troubled East Ramapo district.
The school district faces a fiscal cliff, and several officials on the state and district level have warned that the situation is so dire, the district could be insolvent by this summer.
“Immediate action is necessary,” Regents Chancellor Lester Young said during a Regents meeting Monday. “We must provide a lifeline for the district’s students.”
The Regents voted unanimously Monday to support a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski that would create a state control board for the district.
The Legislature certainly has loose ends to tie up, including new funding source for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority after Gov. Kathy Hochul’s eleventh-hour decision to pause the MTA’s congestion pricing plan.
But a bill without a “same-as” partner bill in the other chamber would be an unlikely candidate for post-session attention. Zebrowski’s bill exists in the Assembly and Sen. Shelley Mayer has sponsored a different bill aimed at easing East Ramapo’s funding crunch and providing more support for public school kids.
Neither bill made it to the floor for a vote before the legislative session ended Saturday.
“I don’t know what it’s going to take to spur action. Maybe blocked school doors? Teachers not showing up because they are not getting paychecks? It shouldn’t have to come to that.”
Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski
“Throughout this session, March through now, I have been saying to folks if you don’t deal with this issue, these school doors may not open at some point,” said Zebrowski, who is not running again to represent the 96th District. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to spur action. Maybe blocked school doors? Teachers not showing up because they are not getting paychecks? It shouldn’t have to come to that.”
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The proposed “fiscal control board” would work with the school board and the state Education Department. The board could raise taxes and even pass a bond to repair buildings that the community would pay back over time.
The Assembly bill would also include a “spin up” of state aid ‒ or a loan to the district based on future state aid ‒ of about $20 million.
Chancellor Young: control board would be ‘signal of hope’
Young supports the establishment of a control board for East Ramapo.
“It’s the only way to put this district on a solid footing and get it back to offering the educational opportunities all of its students rightfully deserve,” he said. “This bill is not just a piece of legislation. It is a signal of hope for the students attending the East Ramapo Central School District.”
Zebrowski acknowledged it is a politically sensitive issue. “The root cause of that structural deficit is that the majority of this school district has decided that they are not (going to) run a functional public school system,” the Democrat said. “And quite frankly that is un-American.”
Fiscal and academic decay in East Ramapo
Some 96% of about 10,500 public-school students in East Ramapo are children of color. More than half are English language learners. About 14.8% of East Ramapo’s public school students are considered homeless, a larger percentage than in New York City schools or any other district in the Lower Hudson Valley.
Another 30,000-plus kids who live within district boundaries attend private schools, mostly yeshivas that serve the Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish community.
The majority of school board members are men who are seen in the public school community as favoring yeshiva students’ needs.
Voters have repeatedly rejected any budget that includes a tax levy hike. That includes in May, when a $133 million 2024-25 budget plan with a 1.99% tax levy hike was defeated. Voters will rule on a budget plan on June 18 that seeks a 1% tax levy increase, but the same spending; the new version of the budget plan would dip further into reserves to cover expenses.
Meanwhile, Superintendent Clarence Ellis leaves at the end of the month; the school board failed to renew his contract. So far there’s no replacement; a recent attempt to hire someone was rejected by a state monitor.
The district’s test scores are at the bottom in every category statewide. Class sizes are large and some classes don’t have permanent teachers amid faculty vacancies. The transportation department, the most complex in any district outside NYC, lacks staff. The district’s bond rating is just one step above junk status; banks have already refused short-term loans to the district, officials have said.
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Buildings are in disrepair, and a swell of $90 million in federal COVID aid hasn’t been able to meet even a fraction of the needs. The district has turned off water fountains for the past eight years because of elevated lead levels; those repairs are now anticipated to be done by next academic year under the federal COVID aid package.
A dwindling local share of revenue available for the district has led to cuts of all kinds and credit rating downgrades.
“The East Ramapo Central School District’s problems are not just a budget deficit. They are in my estimation a ticking time bomb,” Young said. “Its residents knowingly deprive their public-school students of adequate funding and related resources, and they have done this for over a decade.”
Regent Wills perceives a ‘sense of indifference’
The district has been under state monitorship since 2014. The current team, financial monitor Bruce Singer and education monitor Shelley Jallow, have the power to veto certain board decisions.
But the lagging tax base and growing costs are beyond their purview.
Other legislative ways to address East Ramapo’s fiscal problems have been put forth, including one by Republican state Sen. Bill Weber and Assemblyman Karl Brabenec to create a mechanism for the state to manage transportation costs in districts like East Ramapo where a large portion of the student population attend private schools. The district offers universal busing, so not all the cost is reimbursed by the state. Transportation eats up more than 20% of the district’s budget and that share is growing.
The Weber-Brabenec bill has not gained traction.
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa during a May 30 episode of WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom called the issues in East Ramapo “an equity issue.”
“On standardized tests, this is one of the worst districts,” Rosa said on Capitol Pressroom.
She has supported the fiscal control board model in Zebrowski’s bill.
Frances Wills, who represents Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange counties on the Board of Regents, said Monday that when watching school board meetings, she perceives “a sense of indifference to the needs, the values, the beliefs, the parental concerns that are expressed at those meetings.”
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Wills said if the Legislature fails to act on East Ramapo, the Regents must. It was unclear what path could be used.
Meanwhile, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has put East Ramapo on notice that she intends to probe the district.
Young at several points during Monday’s meeting referenced the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he urged Regents’ support for the Zebrowski bill and decisive action in East Ramapo.
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today,” Young said, echoing King’s words. “And we are confronted with a fierce urgency of now. There is such a thing of being too late. We must move past indecisiveness to action. And the responsibility right now is ours and ours alone.”
Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy for lohud.com and the USA Today Network New York. Reach her at ncutler@lohud.com; follow her on X (Twitter), Threads and Instagram at @nancyrockland.
