PROFILE: Barriers to Sound Basic Education in Mount Vernon

By Elias S Gootzeit

Despite the reinstatement of State-Aid to Schools for the City of Mount Vernon., devastating cuts to programs , services and staffing loom.

Despite the reinstatement of State-Aid to Schools for the City of Mount Vernon., devastating cuts to programs , services and staffing loom. In follow-up on the wonderful LEGISLATIVE BREAKFAST SUMMIT that was held on Monday, October 27, 2008 , and sessions that were held in our City Council Chambers on the evening of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday-January 15th at City Hall and at The Education Center at 165 N Columbus Avenue on February 26, 2009, Assemblyman Pretlow has convened an emergency meeting in his office on Tuesday, March 3rd at 3pm to develop emergency legislation to address Mount Vernon School District's fiscal distress. On March 10th we met with the Ways and Means Committee. On March 13th we met with Senator Klein. The Governor and State Legislature brought the budget in on time on April 1, 2009.

However, the City School District is still left with the consequences of its history and real estate tax base. The City of Mount Vernon has been

• unable to provide the SOUND BASIC EDUCATION that our New York State Constitution requires.

• Identifying How the current school finance system of local Real Estate Tax and State Aid fails to pay for a Sound Basic Education in the City of Mount Vernon despite the fact that the State pays 50% more on the dollar per child in this district than the next highest recipient of state aid in the County of Westchester;

• Identifying the Existence of the fatal flaw caused by a State funding mechanism that requires reliance on our real estate tax potential. The need for local reimbursement of the schools far exceeds the availability of taxable properties.

• Identifying How a pattern and practice of sending high needs families to the City of Mount Vernon in order to cleanse the County of Westchester of its impoverished populations has crippled the ability of the District to meet the needs of all of its children.

• Identifying How, historically, the district addressed its disparity in resources by under spending on the Southside;

• Identifying How, in the last ten years, the School Board was able to address the physical plant disparities throughout the district by floating $120 million capital bond, attract substantial reimbursement for those projects, but has been unable to fund the actual instructional programs that all of our students require;