The East Ramapo Tax Levy, What You Can Do About It
A few weeks ago, New York State Commissioner of Education Dr. Betty Rosa significantly and unilaterally raised the tax levy upon the predominantly Jewish district of East Ramapo, New York. In her order she blamed many people, but ignored the true culprit, a faulty state funding formula. Instead of appreciating parents who, at great personal sacrifice, self-fund their children’s education, saving the state nearly a half a billion dollars annually in East Ramapo alone, the state enacted punitive tax levies to compensate for a broken formula that doesn’t account for these nonpublic school students. Agudath Israel of America expressed outrage and concern with the ramifications of the order and is working with others on pathways to respond to these actions.
For the next few days there is something that every New Yorker, and especially East Ramapo residents, can do about it.
The Rockefeller Institute has been tasked by the state to conduct a study to assess the State’s Foundation Aid education funding formula and discuss potential modifications to how the formula works. As the form letter describes, the major issues with the formula is that it does not account for nonpublic students at all and uses obsolete data.
Please write your own comment letter or personalize the form letter below to make your voice heard.
Comments to the Rockefeller Institute can be submitted here and are due this Friday, September 6th.
Rabbi Shragi Greenbaum
Director, Rockland Regional Office
Agudath Israel of America
Rabbi Yeruchim Silber
Director of New York Government Relations
Agudath Israel of America
Mr. Avrohom Weinstock
Director of KnowUs
Agudath Israel of America
This is the first change needed to really push other much-needed changes forward for East Ramapo. We need more money from the state to service the needs of our community better. Please fill out this link Written Comment Submission Form for Foundation Aid Study with the written letter below. Easy copy and paste.
Takes just 1-3 minutes.
Form Letter
To the Rockefeller Institute of Government,
I write to you as a nonpublic school parent, perhaps not the stakeholder one would expect when requesting feedback regarding Foundation Aid designed to fund public schools.
Yet, this expected omission is precisely the issue I write to you about.
The Foundation Aid formula does not account for nonpublic school students at all. While this may have negligible impacts in some areas, in places like the East Ramapo Central School District, where 3/4 of students attend nonpublic school, this oversight has serious repercussions. The district must provide certain services to nonpublic school children yet receives no Foundation Aid to provide them.
This all but guarantees a fiscal deficit, pitting public school parents against nonpublic school parents, all vying for a share of an impossibly small pie, destroying communities. As a Jewish parent, I feel the hostility caused by this deficit; its strife has endured for decades and has exacerbated antisemitism against our community.
There are other issues with the Foundation Aid formula. It relies on U.S. Census data from the year 2000. While the use of dated information likely distorts the funding picture statewide, certain districts, like East Ramapo, have changed dramatically in the last quarter century. East Ramapo has grown significantly since the year 2000. Qualitatively, it has changed as well, and now includes large numbers of English language learners in public school. These students require, and are entitled to, additional services, further straining an already financially strapped district operating under a bygone Foundation Aid formula representative of a different population.
Thank you for researching this issue so that districts like East Ramapo are not shortchanged.
While my child attends nonpublic school, I believe that all children, whether they attend public or non public school, should have the necessary resources to succeed. Please update the Foundation Aid formula accordingly.
Sincerely,