2015 state budget breakdown
Caption:
Education Aid
- School aid increased by $1.4 billion.
- $603 million goes to reduce the Gap
Elimination Adjustment by 60 percent this year.
$433 million of the GEA remains outstanding.
- Foundation Aid increased by $428 million.
- Teacher Center funding was restored at
$14.26 million.
- $75 million to invest in struggling schools.
- Overall increase of $15 million to SUNY stateoperated
campuses, $12 million more for
CUNY senior colleges and a $100-per-student
increase for community colleges.
- Increased funding for 4201 schools, serving
special needs students, 853 schools and
Special Act Schools.
- Restores SUNY hospital funding and blocks
privatization or closure of SUNY Downstate
Medical Center in Brooklyn.
Teacher Evaluation, Tenure
- Tenured employees could face dismissal if they
receive two consecutive ineffective ratings and
must be brought up on 3020a charges if they
receive three ineffectives in a row.
- The probationary period for untenured teachers
is extended to four years, from three.
- Teachers must register with SED, and reregister
every five years after completing at
least 100 hours of SED-approved continuing
education.
- The Regents is tasked with implementing a
new Annual Professional Performance Review
process, heavily prescribed in the legislation.
- Overriding local control, the education commissioner
can place schools designated as
"failing" into receivership.
Up Ahead
- Absent from the budget is the DREAM Act,
which would improve opportunities for immigrants
brought here as children.
- Changes to include collective bargaining and
other inflationary costs in "maintenance of
effort" for higher education were deferred to
the end of the session.
- The budget does not include language on
the Education Investment Tax Credit, the tax
cap or the real property tax circuit breaker.
They could be negotiated in the debate over
mayoral control and rent control.
- The final budget did not lift the cap on charter
schools although it did award $25 million to
increase per-pupil funding. The Legislature is
expected to debate the cap again.
- The budget did not address raising the
minimum wage.