U.S Rep. Lowey: Congressional Budget Fight Could Hurt Local Education Funding

As resources on the local level continue to dwindle, local school districts and youth programs now find themselves trying to brace for even more substantial cuts on the federal level.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, held a press conference at the White Plains school administrative building to discuss the Republican proposal to slash the education spending bill by 22 percent in 2014 budget. Nationally, the cuts would lower federal funding for education by $2.6 billion and aid for disadvantaged students by $2.8 billion, according to Lowey.

Locally, schools in Westchester and Rockland Counties would lose about $4.4 million a year in federal if the current cuts made during the sequestration in March are left to continue into the next fiscal year. Those cuts would come in the form of Title I funding, which seeks to improve academic achievement for the disadvantaged; and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding, which helps schools educate children with disabilities.

“This is a dysfunctional Congress,” Lowey said. “I have never seen a process like this and [House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio], who would like to reach across the aisle, tells us the Tea Party won’t let him. So now, they are going to have to put together a bill and we’ll see what happens because it won’t get through the Senate and it won’t get signed by the White House.”

Democrat and Republican Congress members are fighting to decide what funding amounts are in place in budget for fiscal year 2014, which begins Oct. 1. Among the sticking points is specifically, whether to keep up sequestration spending levels.

“We always worry about what’s going to happen to the schools,” Timothy O’Connor, interim superintendent of White Plains school said. “I know here in White Plains, over the last three or four years at least in terms of IDEA at Title I, we average about 2 percent. Last year, we only got about $78,000.”

O’Connor said the federal government already has a history of instituting programs only to gradually cut off program. He used special education as an example.

“For over 50 years now, with special education the government came out and said ...’we’re going to work and have it funded at 50 percent’,” O’Connor said. “Well, 50 years later, they’re back at, I don’t even think, 20 percent.”

Frank Williams, director of the City of White Plain Youth Bureau, said the his organization has run two 21st Century Community Learning Center programs for children after school.

Williams said the those programs, which cost $1.7 million to run, have been lost and there are more than 900 students out in the dark unless federal funding is restored.

“Here in the City of White Plains we are faced with a quandary,” Williams said. “How do we engage our kids and prepare them for the future and for work and college and great future? Well, the issue is that there is no way we can serve 900 children without resources.”

Edward Kliszus, superintendent of the Port Chester-Rye Union Free School District, said Port Chester is a good example of school district that’s been hurt by the federal education cuts.

Kliszus said his school ranged from having 68 to 82 percent students in the free and reduced lunch program. He said his district now has elementary school classes with as many as 27 students in one class and there are high school students forced to take study hall because of a lack of teachers.