City & State 03182016

City & State Reports, Rockefeller College & Albany Law School Present a one-day Certificate Training Conference on:

Government ethics Featured speakers include:

Richard Ravitch, former Lieutenant Government of New York Eleanor Randolph, New York Times editorial writer Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., NYU Brennan Center for Justice & Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP Alphonso David, Counsel, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Karl J. Sleight, Harris Beach PLLC Professor Jeffrey Straussman, Rockefeller College Professor Raymond Brescia, Albany Law School Wednesday, April 20 8:30am – 4:30pm Albany Law School 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, New York $199, Government/Non-Profit $349, General Admission The one-day conference will provide executive training on the theory and practice of ethics in state government. Participants will receive a Special Certificate of Completion from Rockefeller College. Attorneys will receive 5 hours of CLE credit from Albany Law School.

Visit http://www.cityandstateny.com/csr/about-csr/ for more information For group rates and sponsorship opportunities, contact Hayley Kaplan at hkaplan@cityandstateny.com or 212-268-0442 x2022.

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EDITOR’S NOTE / Contents Nearly a year ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo broke his streak of four straight on-time budgets.

In the Assembly, lawmakers finished passing their spending bills in the wee hours on April 1, just after the midnight deadline.

The slight delay didn’t matter much. The administration went on to tout its “five on-time, balanced budgets,” and some journalists went along with the characterization.

But beyond the technicalities, the designation is a critically important one to Cuomo, who has portrayed on-time budgets as evidence that he has made Albany functional again.

That claim will be tested once again in the coming days. The governor is trying to pack in as much as he can, but lawmakers are threatening to delay or even kill some of his top priorities. Meanwhile, the governor will have to balance what kind of deal he can get with the rapidly approaching deadline.

The clock is ticking.

Jon Lentz Senior Editor

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SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION Reporter Ashley Hupfl explores what will undoubtedly be one of the central issues in this year’s state budget: education.

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THE BUDGET Senior editor Jon Lentz writes that Cuomo’s top initiative this year is at risk of dropping out of the budget entirely.

Plus, a peek at the future of 421-a, a Q&A with Citizens Budget Commission’s Carol Kellermann on Cuomo’s infrastructure proposals and a rundown of the three legislative leaders’ pet causes.

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BEYOND THE BILLION In the second installment of our three-part series, reporter Justin Sondel asks whether job training can close the widening gap as Buffalo’s boom bypasses minorities.

NEW YORK SLANT In a continuation of our spotlight section, the Independent Budget Office’s Raymond Domanico argues New York City schools may actually be doing better than the rest of the state. And former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky pleads not to let the feud between Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drag down CUNY and SUNY.

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BACK & FORTH Former New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan weighs in on safer streets, self-driving cars and Times Square critics.

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MARK NERYS

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By JON LENTZ

After Republicans regained control of the state Senate in the 2010 elections, state Sen. Jeff Klein and three fellow lawmakers broke away from the Democrats to form their own Independent Democratic Conference.

The Bronx lawmaker said at the time that he was fed up with the Democratic leadership, which had squandered its brief hold on power. But while the secession coincided with the end of one chaotic period, it was the start of another wild ride.

Now, with Republicans holding on to a narrow majority and Democrats hoping to finally retake control this fall, will this latest loop find Klein reaching a new, exhilarating high – or hitting the brakes?

JAN. 2, 2011 Klein steps down as deputy leader of the state Senate Democratic conference, saying he can’t continue to support then-Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson.

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JAN. 5, 2011 Klein and state Sens. David Valesky, David Carlucci and Diane Savino break away from the mainline Senate Democrats to form the Independent Democratic Conference.

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DEC. 4, 2012 – Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Klein announce a bipartisan governing coalition between the IDC and the GOP, ensuring a Republican-controlled state Senate. As co-leader, Klein will join the “three men in a room” meetings. Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith also joins the IDC. 4.

APRIL 2, 2013 Smith is arrested by the FBI on federal corruption charges.

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APRIL 14, 2013 The IDC expels Smith because of his corruption charges.

JUNE 25, 2014 The IDC announces it will seek to share power with the state Senate Democrats after the November elections, ending the power-sharing coalition with Republicans.

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NOV. 4, 2014 The state Senate Republicans pick up three new districts in the midterm elections, gaining the majority in the chamber. Klein loses his position as co-leader of the state Senate.

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NOV. 7, 2012 Democrats are reported to have recaptured the state Senate with a slim majority.

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FEB. 26, 2014 State Sen. Tony Avella breaks away from the Democratic conference to join the IDC. 7.

NOV. 18, 2015 A 2014 wiretapped conversation played during Skelos’ corruption trial shows Skelos told Klein he would retain the title of co-coalition leader, but would lose many of the powers he had the previous two years.

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MAY/JUNE 2015 – Klein continues to participate in leaders meetings with newly elected state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan.

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NOV. 23, 2015 Klein says Skelos’ comments are not enough to end the IDC-GOP coalition.

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JAN. 6, 2016 The 2016 legislative session begins. It remains unclear whether Klein will be part of the leaders meetings with Cuomo, Flanagan and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie – or which party he’ll side with during the fall elections.

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$15 FIGHT ON HOLD

Cuomo’s minimum wage plan could drop out of the budget. Is that a smart move?

DARREN MCGEE / OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

By JON LENTZ

AT A STATE Democratic Committee meeting last month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo listed three top priorities for this year: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, instituting 12 weeks of paid family leave and spending $100 million to help turn around struggling schools.

The governor had already put the three measures in his executive budget proposal, which typically gives legislation a stronger chance of getting signed into law. Much

of the governor’s power comes from his institutional control over the budget, and some of his major legislative feats – closing a $10 billion deficit, launching the Buffalo Billion, taking a key first step toward legalizing casino gambling – were achieved through this process.

A similar dynamic is at play in the state Senate and Assembly. If one house can’t get a bill through as a stand-alone measure, convincing the governor to tuck it into his

multibillion-dollar spending plan can be just the ticket.

This year, however, the put-it-inthe-budget approach might not pan out, at least when it comes to one high-profile piece of legislation.

The proposed $15 minimum wage, which Cuomo has tied to the legacy of his late father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, and which he has traveled around the state promoting, is perhaps his most significant initiative this year – but it could be

at risk of dropping out of the budget entirely. Although the governor said last week that the minimum wage should be included, he has left open the option of taking it up after the April 1 budget deadline.

But if he does put it on the back burner and tries to bring it back later on in the session, there’s no guarantee he’ll get anything beyond than the same lukewarm response from the Republican-controlled Senate. Cuomo has a limited track

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As the April 1 deadline to approve the state budget approaches, elected officials are wrangling over what to include in the $150 billion-plus spending plan and what to leave out.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top priorities of “the three men in the room” negotiating the budget – Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie – and where each man stands on the issues.

THE ISSUES

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER JOHN FLANAGAN

ASSEMBLY SPEAKER CARL HEASTIE

$15 minimum wage

Cuomo is spearheading the push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, launching a campaign named after his late father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, and joining forces with unions like 1199 SEIU. However, he has suggested that it could wait until after the budget is done.

Flanagan says any increase would need to coincide with support for businesses that exceeds Cuomo’s proposal for $300 million in small business tax cuts. There have also been reports of divisions in the Senate GOP over allowing a higher minimum wage.

Heastie has embraced the proposed $15 minimum wage, calling it one of the Democratic conference’s top priorities. The Assembly’s budget proposal follows Cuomo’s in phasing in a hike over several years, but then calls for indexing it to inflation after it hits $15.

Paid family leave

Cuomo also invoked his father, who died last year, in announcing a paid family leave plan. A top priority of the governor, it would allow for 12 weeks of vacation to care for a child or sick family member, eventually covering up to 67 percent of the employee’s salary.

Although it would be funded through a payroll deduction, Senate Republicans have raised concerns. Flanagan’s conference included paid family leave language in its budget resolution, but called for further assessment and respecting the needs of small businesses.

Heastie’s conference passed paid family leave legislation in February. The Assembly’s budget resolution also calls for increasing the Temporary Disability Insurance benefit and taking other steps to protect employees.

Community schools

Cuomo in January announced a $100 million fund for more community schools, a strategy that addresses poverty in failing schools by offering health care and other services.

Flanagan’s budget proposal did not include specific funding for community schools, but it would increase foundation aid funding, which could be used for such schools.

Heastie would add $100 million for community schools in districts with struggling schools, doubling Cuomo’s proposal for a total of $200 million.

Closing the Gap Elimination Adjustment

The Paterson-era school aid cuts have gradually been closed as the economy recovers. Cuomo in January called for closing the remaining $434 million over two years.

Flanagan said that closing the GEA is essential, and that it should be done more quickly, over a one-year period.

Heastie’s budget resolution also calls for closing the full $434 million, adding another $244 million to Cuomo’s $189 million restoration.

Income taxes

Cuomo has not proposed any income tax changes this year, and he shot down Heastie’s call for a tax hike on the wealthy, saying there’s no “appetite to take up taxes.”

Senate Republicans have touted a tax cut proposal they say would lower taxes for middle-class residents 25 percent by 2025 and save $3.5 billion a year. Some 5 million taxpayers would benefit in 2018.

Heastie’s conference would also cut income taxes for 5 million middleclass New Yorkers. But Heastie would raise the income tax rate for top earners, which Cuomo and Senate Republicans oppose.

Property tax cap

Last year, Cuomo extended his 2 percent property tax cap for another four years. He has not tried to extend it to New York City, but did propose shifting other costs since the five boroughs are exempt from the cap.

Flanagan and his Republican colleagues want to make the property tax cap permanent. The conference also wants to extend the cap to New York City, which has been exempt.

Heastie has said the tax cap should allow for 2 percent growth every year, even if inflation is lower. He downplayed the issue in New York City, saying rates are already low there.

Ethics reform

After the convictions of two legislative leaders, Cuomo proposed campaign finance reform, closing the LLC loophole, limiting lawmakers’ outside income, and other reforms. But the governor has suggested they would not be in the budget.

Flanagan’s conference is opposed to taxpayer-funded campaign financing and a full-time Legislature, but supports stripping pensions from public officials convicted of a felony and eight-year term limits for leadership positions.

Heastie has also downplayed ethics, but he recently rolled out some proposals, including closing the LLC loophole, instituting more generous limits on lawmaker incomes, and stripping pensions from convicted officials.

record of inserting major legislation into his budget, removing it before the deadline, and then persuading legislative leaders to pass it before the session ends in June. When a bill drops out of the budget, it’s often dead.

THEN AGAIN, THERE are plenty of pathways to passage. Some of Cuomo’s biggest milestones were achieved well before or well after the end of March. Cuomo’s landmark same-sex marriage bill was voted on in June of 2011. In January of 2013 he signed the SAFE Act, his controversial gun control measure.

Various ethics reforms were passed both as part of and separately from the budget over Cuomo’s five full terms. Like the minimum wage, most of these measures faced stiff opposition.

This year, a stand-alone bill to legalize mixed martial arts is poised to advance in the Assembly, where it has been bottled up for years.

Instead of burying it in the budget, Assembly Democrats said they want to give both sides a chance to debate it. Countless other bills will be taken up in the so-called “Big Ugly” in June, when lawmakers rush to finalize as many last-minute deals as they can.

And last year alone, several items initially introduced in the budget were passed in June, including an extension of the property tax cap and mayoral control, an expansion of charter schools and the “Enough is Enough” law cracking down on sexual assault on college campuses.

But removal from the budget typically reflects strong opposition by at least one of “the three men in the room.” Already several other measures are looking like no-gos this year, from the governor’s proposed freeze on tolls on the Thruway to his overhaul of workers compensation. Advocates pushed to include the Dream Act, which would grant young undocumented immigrants access to state financial aid for college, while others lobbied for the inclusion of the Parental Choice in Education Act, which would encourage donations to

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private schools. Both were put in this year’s budget, yet neither is expected to make the final cut. And none of these measures are likely have better odds in May or June, barring a shift in control of the state Senate.

When it comes to the minimum wage, Cuomo’s strong support will undoubtedly alter the equation. The question is how much.

“Things like this, the governor wants to get it done in the budget, and is committed to getting it done in the budget, unless he sees it maybe not happening in the budget.

And then his deadline extends, because Albany has never met a deadline that wasn’t fungible,” said Bob Bellafiore, a veteran of the Pataki administration who is now a communications consultant. “The governor, also, his main priority in the budget is having it done on time.

So if it’s going to impair his ability to get his budget done by April 1, then you push off the item later.”

IT USED TO be that the state budget simply dealt with matters that had a fiscal impact. Policy items not tied to spending or revenue were taken up separately. The dynamic changed under Gov. George Pataki, who began inserting non-fiscal policy language into his budget to maximize his leverage. ThenAssembly Speaker Sheldon Silver sued, and lost. Since then, it has become more common to include high-priority policy bills in the budget.

Although there is some debate over whether the minimum wage belongs in the budget, there is precedent for it. The last time the state raised it, in 2013, it was in the state’s spending plan. Wages aren’t necessarily a fiscal matter for state government, but the Legislature also passed tax cuts and credits for businesses to soften the blow.

“Minimum wage, also, at this point, has a minimal fiscal impact,” Bellafiore said. “It’s more of a policy thing, unless the state – in full disclosure, I have clients involved in this – funds a minimum wage increase for nonprofits who are

funded by Medicaid. They get all their payments through the state, and they don’t have hamburgers on which they can raise their prices. So the minimum wage is a thing that would normally be done outside the budget process anyway.

Technically, mechanically, even if you pass a bill after the budget that has a financial impact, you can always adjust the budget. You can make a special appropriation to fund a certain thing if there’s going to be a fiscal impact.”

Cuomo has sent mixed messages about when the minimum wage should be taken up, not only as a political matter but on a technical level. In late February he told reporters it is “tangentially related to the budget,” but that “you could argue that it’s not an essential budget item, that it’s a matter of policy that could be done after the budget.” A few weeks later, he asserted that the minimum wage, as well as paid family leave, which has been linked to his wage hike proposal, are “fundamentally economic issues that are customary for the budget.”

OF COURSE, EVEN though Cuomo has suggested he might have to delay it, he may follow through

on his latest stance that he wants to reach a deal on the minimum wage this month.

Bruce Gyory, a political consultant who served in the Spitzer administration, said one tactic is to give the Legislature room to maneuver instead of applying pressure, at least publicly. That strategy played out successfully in the debate over same-sex marriage, he noted, when Cuomo cajoled lawmakers behind the scenes instead of publicly insisting that they back it.

“It doesn’t mean just because you’re not pressuring to have it done there, that it won’t be done as a part of the budget,” he said. “For example, you could see a functional trade – and I’m not predicting this will happen, but it will be a possibility – if the Senate wants a tax cut package to be a part of the budget, and it seems from press accounts recently that they would, that then that gives the governor an opportunity to say, ‘Well, if you want me to agree to this, then we ought to put minimum wage in there,’ rather than publicly putting a stick in their eye and saying, ‘No budget without minimum wage.’ It doesn’t mean you’re not trying to get it.”

PHILIP KAMRASS / OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

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NO 421-A IN ASSEMBLY, SENATE BILLS By JON LENTZ

Elected Leaders Supporting Indian Point Put Public Interest First

BY ARTHUR “JERRY” KREMER

Our state of New York has an incredible resource in Indian Point Energy Center, feeding the voracious energy needs of New York metro with 2,000 megawatts, independent of sun or weather, around the clock every day of the year—without polluting our air with carbon or particulates.

ALLEN.G

This powerhouse for electricity is also a powerhouse for our economy, assuring thousands of good paying jobs, over $1.3 billion of economic activity, and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues.

WHEN THE REAL estate industry and construction union leaders failed to reach a deal to extend the 421-a tax abatement program earlier this year, some observers figured it would get renewed in the state budget.

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn’t address the controversial program, which offered incentives to developers who include affordable units in new buildings, in his executive budget proposal in January. And neither the state Senate nor the Assembly included renewing 421-a or creating a program to replace it in their own budget proposals in recent days – casting doubt on whether any deal will be reached before the April 1 state budget deadline.

Mike Whyland, a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, confirmed that 421-a was not addressed in the lower house’s budget. “As the Speaker has said, developers and labor still have an opportunity to work out a deal,” Whyland said in a statement, “and if not, we recognize the need to have some type of program in place to encourage affordable housing.”

A Senate Republican representative said that the conference’s position hasn’t changed since the negotiating deadline passed early this year. “We still believe it’s imperative that a program is in place that fixes the city’s inequitable taxing structure that is preventing the private construction of affordable rental housing,” Kelly Cummings, a spokeswoman for the Senate GOP, said in January. “This is crucial in a city as expensive to live in as New York.”

A Cuomo spokeswoman confirmed that there are no ongoing discussions regarding the creation of a housing program that would replace 421-a.

After both houses released their proposals, Assemblyman Keith Wright introduced legislation to offer subsidies instead of the incentives included in 421-a, but several groups said it would not be an adequate replacement.

Supporters say 421-a played a critical role in spurring affordable housing in New York City. Critics blasted luxury developers who took advantage of it to reduce their tax burden.

In an unusual move, the governor and legislative leaders last year delegated to the Real Estate Board of New York and construction unions the responsibility of hashing out an agreement involving prevailing wages for workers on 421-a projects, but the effort fell through. Neither REBNY nor its negotiating partner, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, responded to requests for comment.

Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime political consultant, said he’s not surprised at the lack of progress, but noted that there’s still time to make a deal – even if it’s later on in the session after the budget deadline.

“It’s not resolved so far from last session,” he said. “If there’s a new resolution, it will be in discussion with the governor and the two legislative leaders, and that really doesn’t happen until the budget moves along a little bit more.”

No question about it: there’s a lot to like about Indian Point, and about the skilled and dedicated professionals who run the plant and put safety first and foremost.

It was precisely because of Indian Point’s commitment to unequivocal safety and accountability that facility operator Entergy recently announced an elevation in the measurement of tritium in groundwater routinely sampled around the plant.

The level was one one-thousandth of what is required, per stringent federal regulations, to be reported; but Indian Point is always focused on eliminating potential risks to the public, so the plant both issued notification and acted immediately on the tritium level, while emphasizing correctly that there was absolutely no threat to drinking water or public health.

Local elected officials whose responsibility it is to protect the well-being of their constituents responded equally admirably, asking thoughtful questions and, once they were satisfied with the answers, taking care to inform the public that there was no danger. These officials, who span the political spectrum, prove that serving the best interests of our communities who need abundant clean, reliable electricity knows no party.

Therefore, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend Buchanan Mayor Theresa Knickerbocker, Peekskill Mayor Frank Catalina, Westchester County Legislator John Testa, Putnam County Executive Mary Ellen Odell, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, New York State Assemblyman Karl Brabenec, and State Senator Terrence Murphy for their leadership and statesmanship.

It’s refreshing to know that these guardians of the public trust take their position of responsibility seriously, in contrast to the fear mongering and demagoguery that we see indulged all too frequently by officials who should both know better and act better.

Indian Point and the conscientious men and women who operate it have earned our trust and confidence—and so have the local officials who’ve spoken out, rightly, to tell the truth about this categorically safe and uniquely valuable Hudson Valley asset.

Arthur “Jerry” Kremer is the former chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and a principal author of the state’s power plant siting law. He now is the chairman of the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance.

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The New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (New York AREA) is a diverse group of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working together for clean, low-cost and reliable electricity solutions that foster prosperity and jobs for the Empire State.

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CAPITAL PLANS

Cuomo’s infrastructure proposals are bold, but how will he pay for them?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious new public works agenda would do everything from transform Penn Station to overhaul the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to expand the Long Island Rail Road – and that’s in addition to existing commitments like funding the MTA capital plan and paying for a new Tappan Zee Bridge.

With the state budget deadline looming at the end of the month, City & State’s Ashley Hupfl checked in with Citizens Budget Commission President Carol Kellermann about those plans – and more. The following is an edited transcript.

C&S: The Cuomo administration has faced criticism for its multiyear, multibillion-dollar capital spending proposal. What do you think about his proposal to allocate $22 billion to repair the state’s roads and bridges?

CK: We have concerns in general about the high amount of borrowing and debt that the state is undertaking. Not particularly on roads and bridges. People seem not to be remembering that the governor issued a 10-year capital plan in 2014 … and it was the first time he had a 10-year plan, and that it integrated all agencies, including the public authorities, into the plan. It already had a significant amount of money for the (state) Department of Transportation for roads and bridges. I don’t think it was $22 billion, I think it was $17 or $18 billion, but most of this funding had already been planned before this budget. So it’s not really that dramatically new, and yes, overall, there are a lot of questions about where this money will come from.

C&S: Where will the money come from?

CK: Will there be revenue sources or will it all be borrowing? Will the money to pay for it come out of general revenue or will there be tolls and fees like there are for certain bridges and tunnels that are supposed to be self-funding? So there are questions, but it takes a very long time to spend that much money, and you don’t really need to have the money in hand until you are ready to enter into contracts to do work. There’s quite a lot of planning and preliminary evaluation of projects ahead before we’re actually going to spend $22 billion.

It’s not like tomorrow he’s going

to allocate $22 billion. Everybody in upstate talks about parity, so I think one or more of the one-house bills will propose spending more than that, but there is a lot of aging infrastructure – I would include water and sewer infrastructure in there, as well – and we do have to keep our statewide infrastructure in a state of good repair, so it’s not inappropriate to plan to allocate, which is all this is, a plan to allocate funds.

C&S: Why is a 10-year plan important?

CK: We’re talking about a 10-year year plan, so there’s not anything unusual about making multi-year plans. What people are concerned about are the recent hundredmillion, billion-dollar new plans – the Javits Center, the new Penn Station – and that coming up with a $100 billion figure is arbitrary because you haven’t even done anything to know how much these projects are going to cost or how long it will take to really sculpt them out. Some of it seems to be done for purposes of creating excitement and drama and not necessarily a realistic expectation that any or all of these things will happen. But I think that’s different. Those plans people are critical of because they create a sense of excitement and drama that may not really result in anything beyond that. But saying you’re going to spend a certain amount of money over 10 years to upkeep roads and bridges upstate or around the state is different, because you’re saying, “This is how much we’re willing to spend, up to this amount.” Then you have to see what the projects are, and I don’t think people in the counties outside the metropolitan area really have any doubt that

CityAndStateNY.com

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“IT’S NOT LIKE TOMORROW (CUOMO IS) GOING TO ALLOCATE $22 BILLION. ... WE HAVE TO KEEP OUR STATEWIDE INFRASTRUCTURE IN A STATE OF GOOD REPAIR, SO IT’S NOT INAPPROPRIATE TO PLAN TO ALLOCATE FUNDS.”

Our Our Perspective Perspective

there are enough projects to meet that level of expense over time. So I guess I’m not as outraged about that particular plan as some people you’ve talked to.

By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW and Department Store Union, Retail, Wholesale RWDSU, UFCW here is dignity in all honest work, and all workers deserve to be treated with respect. here is dignity in all honest work, and all When people go to each day, workers deserve to work be treated withthey respect. deserve to be able to and to When people gosupport to work themselves each day, they earn a decent living.toThat’s what it’s supposed to be deserve to be able support themselves and to about. earn a decent living. That’s what it’s supposed to be about.When people go to work each day, they should Andthey yet should for far not beWhen condemned of poverty. people to golives to work each day, too workers, that is exactly whatAnd is happening. yet for far not many be condemned to lives of poverty.

Theymany go toworkers, work each day too that is – exactly what is happening. just like society wants stillgocondemned to day lives–of poverty, anxiety and They to work each them to – and they are just like society wants stresstobecause Neware York’s wage is inadequate. wrong, – and they still minimum condemned to lives of poverty, It’s anxiety andit’s them immoral, and it has to change.

And the way to make it It’s change is by stress because Newgot York’s minimum wage is inadequate. wrong, it’s raising New wage to $15 hour. immoral, andYork’s it hasminimum got to change.

And thean way to make it change is by simply a matter of fairness, raisingIt’s New York’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. decency, and good economics.

It’s simply a matter of fairness, When we join together to fight for $15 anand hourgood we are fighting for decency, economics. more than higher wagetorate. fighting forwe a better futurefor for Whenjust we ajoin together fightWe forare $15 an hour are fighting all New Yorkers. are wage fighting for We a growing middle andfuture morefor more than just aWe higher rate. are fighting forclass, a better opportunity for all ofare us. fighting We are fighting for a stronger tax base a all New Yorkers.

We for a growing middle class, andand more diminished gap between theare wealthiest working opportunity for all of us. We fighting few for aand stronger taxpeople. base and a At thegap RWDSU, andthe at our diminished between wealthiest union’s few Retail andAction working Project, people. which gives assistance At thetoRWDSU, non-union andretail at our workers, theProject, daily struggles union’swe’ve Retailseen Action which gives that retail workers in Newretail Yorkworkers, face. Toowe’ve manyseen are bringing $10 an assistance to non-union the dailyhome struggles hour,retail $9 an hour, and sometimes even Many of these home workers arean that workers in New York face.

Tooless. many are bringing $10 forced to an turn to public assistance.even It’s outrageous that any workers hardworking hour, $9 hour, and sometimes less. Many of these are personto should stamps It’s to provide dinner forany their family. forced turn torequire publicfood assistance. outrageous that hardworking personRetail should require food stamps to provide dinner for workers represent the largest percentage of their New family.

Yorkers Retail who work at workers minimum wage or the slightly above.

And these represent largest percentage of workers New Yorkers – andwage deserve – more pay. And these workers desperately who work at need minimum or slightly above.

But retail workers not alone.

– and are deserve – more pay. desperately need Car wash workers,are home But retail workers nothealth alone.aides, food service workers, and many Car in other deserve than theservice terriblyworkers, insufficient washindustries workers, all home healthmore aides, food and $9 minimum that New York State mandates. many in otherwage industries all deserve more than the terribly insufficient Every working human in New York deserves better than that. $9 minimum wage that Newbeing York State mandates.

Every Every workerworking is doinghuman their part, contributing our communities, and being in New Yorktodeserves better than that. making profitsisfor theirtheir bosses. all deserve shot at a decent and life. We Every worker doing part,We contributing to aour communities, all deserve a chance to bosses. build stronger communities, making profits for their We all families deserve and a shot at a decent and life. We realize our dreams. all deserve a chance to build stronger families and communities, and why we work. realizeThat’s our dreams.

Our movement is getting stronger. It’s a movement to change the That’s why we work. lives ofOur three million working people. movement is getting stronger. It’s a movement to change the state lives ofThe three million working people. legislature needs to listen to us, do what is right, and The state help ensure Newlegislature York’s workers guaranteed higher and aand better needsare to listen to us, do whatpay is right, quality of life.New York’s workers are guaranteed higher pay and a better help ensure qualityTogether, of life. we can win a higher minimum wage, and we can make a difference in thewe lives New York’s minimum working families.

Together, canofwin a higher wage, and we can make a difference in the lives of New York’s working families.

PHILIP KAMRASS/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

C&S: What concerns do you have about the Cuomo administration’s proposals?

CK: The new Tappan Zee Bridge.

That bridge is different. That bridge is under construction and has cost estimates, but we still don’t know how that’s going to be funded.

That’s past the planning stage and into the implementation stage and the governor has just now said he’s allocated another $700 million from bank settlement funds to the Thruway Authority, but it’s not clear what that’s going to, how much of it will go to the Tappan Zee Bridge and that we are going ahead with these projects without fully understanding the full scope of the costs and how we are going to pay it off. That’s something more

specific than a long-range 10-year generic plan. There’s a concept that a toll bridge should be funded through the tolls and it’s being eroded. We don’t even want to figure out how much the toll needs to be to pay off the construction debt and to operate the bridge once it’s open. The proposal is to use one-time funds to subsidize the tolls for three years. Well, that’s not really going to be a onetime expense because people will expect the tolls to continue to be subsidized and he says we’re not going to deal with what the tolls will be on the Tappan Zee until 2020, we’re just going to keep finding ways to keep them the way they are until then. Well, again, by suggesting that you can just keep putting this off and not really give drivers an understanding of what the costs of the bridge are, is bad.

It undermines the whole concept of user fees being used to pay for highways.

New New York’s York’s Workers Workers Deserve Deserve Dignity, Dignity, and and an an Immediate Immediate Raise Raise

T T

For more information, visit For more information, visit www.rwdsu.org

www.rwdsu.org Construction progresses on the Tappan Zee Bridge’s replacement.

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CityAndStateNY.com

Editor’s note: As Buffalo shows signs of an economic resurgence after years of decline, there are questions about whether the people who most need a hand up will benefit. This is the second story of a three-part series exploring the impact of the Buffalo Billion and other state investments aimed at revitalizing Western New York.

BEYOND

the BILLION

AS BUFFALO’S BOOM BYPASSES MINORITIES, CAN JOB TRAINING CLOSE THE GAP?

Story by JUSTIN SONDEL

Photos by BRENDAN BANNON

CityAndStateNY.com

TUAN JONES STANDS next to a humming lathe, staring intently from behind protective glasses as small shards of metal are stripped from the cylinder he is working on and fall into the tray below or out onto the shop floor.

It’s mid-February, and Jones and his classmates are about threequarters of the way through a yearlong training program that will certify them to work as machine technicians at one of the many shops throughout the area that are starved for qualified workers.

To qualify, a prospective trainee must have been out of work for 20 weeks. They are in the classroom and the machine shop five days a week, eight hours a day.

Jones, who returned to Buffalo several years ago after spending 14 years in the Navy, came across the opportunity through a state Department of Labor email.

After having little success in the job market, despite his extensive experience as an air conditioning and refrigeration specialist, he decided to enroll in the program.

In Jones’ estimation, his lack of connections to people in the trades was one reason he was finding it so hard to get decent work. Considering Buffalo’s recent construction boom, he thought there would be plenty of opportunities for someone with heating and cooling systems knowhow.

“It’s not what you know,” Jones said. “It’s who you know.”

MIND THE GAP When the participants graduate in May, the numbers would suggest that finding a job will be easy.

Manufacturers have complained of a dearth of skilled workers capable of running the sort of computerized numerical control machines used today. While the Department of Labor projects that manufacturing jobs in the region will fall by about 2 percent from 2012 to 2022, some subgroups are expected to grow.

Jobs in fabricated metal product manufacturing are expected to rise by 9 percent in the region, while other sectors, including the manufacturing of furniture, wood

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products and primary metals, are also expected to grow.

And those numbers, calculated before Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion announcement, are conservatively based in historical data. None of the initiatives introduced since then – Buffalo Manufacturing Works, the Riverbend solar panel manufacturing plant – factor in.

SolarCity, which will make solar panels at the state-owned and built factory at Riverbend, is alone expected to create nearly 3,000 jobs in the region, many of them in the

Buffalo State for a decade and has had active relationships with many of the region’s manufacturing companies throughout that time, said he cannot recall ever seeing an African-American – and only one woman, maybe two – on a shop floor.

“If you’re a person of color, you’re on the outside,” Macho said. “You don’t have any cousins or brothers or uncles in that industry.”

The free training program, which launched last year, is funded by more than $400,000 in grants

ON THE MEND In his 10 years in office, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has managed to avoid tax hikes and has enjoyed a recent construction and development boom at a level not seen in decades. The mayor is not shy about claiming his role in that transformation, often describing himself as a consensus builder who has bridged the racial, ethnic and partisan gaps that had earned Western New York a reputation as an intensely divisive and cutthroat political arena.

“THERE’S STILL THE INHERENT SOCIAL BARRIERS THAT ENFORCE A VERY REAL FORM OF RACISM. OUR PROGRAM’S INTENTION WAS TO RECRUIT THOSE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BARRIER AND TRAIN THEM AND GET THEM UP TO SPEED.” Steve Macho, Buffalo State advanced manufacturing program teacher

sort of work Tuan and his classmates are training for. In addition, a large swath of the manufacturing workforce is nearing retirement age. Industry estimates suggest that around 17,000 jobs in the sector will open up due to retirement or job growth by 2020.

Those opportunities are already starting to come around, said professor Steve Macho, one of the Buffalo State teachers running the advanced manufacturing program.

“Companies like MOOG, Ford, the GM plant, PCB, they all do a great deal of machining, and their workforce has been in place for 25 to 30 years,” Macho said while sitting in a hallway outside of one of the shops where the participants were working this fall. “They’re highly skilled, they earn very good checks and they’re about to retire.”

For decades, manufacturing has been moving in the opposite direction. As jobs became more scarce, the mostly white workforce often encouraged family members to get into the same line of work, Macho said.

Macho, who has been working at

from the state Department of Labor and JPMorgan Chase, enough to run through 2017. Minorities, women and veterans are given priority, a fact reflected in the makeup of the class: They are mostly people of color, and about a quarter women, many with military service on their resumes.

The program poses some of the same obstacles that can sideline the long-term unemployed, such as a requiring a high school diploma or equivalency certificate. But unlike many similar programs – Alfred State College and Erie Community College both have training programs with pipelines to employers – Buffalo State has an aggressive outreach effort that relies on community organizations and church groups, as well as more traditional means like the labor department, to recruit participants.

“There’s still the inherent social barriers that enforce a very real form of racism,” Macho said. “Our program’s intention was to recruit those on the wrong side of the barrier and train them and get them up to speed.”

And while many factors outside of his control contributed to his city’s resurgence – a steadily improving national economy, heavy investment from the state – Brown has held things together enough to pave the way for the many changes taking shape.

But as the “Buffalo Renaissance” has continued to gain steam, many residents in Brown’s neighborhood continue to struggle. Brown grew up in New York City and now lives in the stable, middle-class AfricanAmerican community of Hamlin Park, just a few blocks east of Main Street, but he has long been aware of the deep poverty that persists in Buffalo.

When he first won the mayor’s office, becoming the first AfricanAmerican to occupy the second floor of City Hall, his victory was in no small part the result of his ability to mobilize the minority vote. Grassroots, the East Sidebased political organization that helped launch the careers of other prominent AfricanAmerican politicians in the city, such as Assemblywoman Crystal

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schools began a partnership with the philanthropic nonprofit Say Yes to Education. In addition to providing tuition at partnering colleges and universities for any student who graduates from the district, it has worked to implement wrap-around services like mental health supports and mentorship programs in the schools that give kids a better chance to succeed. Earlier this year, the state announced that the city’s schools just broke the 60 percent on-time graduation mark for the first time in a decade.

Through state grants, the district has implemented training programs that put kids on career tracks in emerging fields like green construction, advanced manufacturing and biomedical sciences and foster relationships with employers.

Out of work for months, Tuan Jones enrolled in an advanced manufacturing training program at Buffalo State College.

Jones works on a lathe at his advanced manufacturing class.

Peoples-Stokes and former state Sen. Antoine Thompson, was the vehicle that pushed Brown, then a state senator, into the seat he now occupies.

While he understands the continuing frustrations, Brown believes that the recent progress will ultimately help those neighborhoods that first put him in office.

“When I first started in this job 10 years ago, the debate wasn’t whether there would be a job for everybody,” Brown said. “It was whether there would be a job for anybody. So, I think people see the progress, they want to be a part of it. But, to lift people who, maybe for generations, have been in poverty out of that condition, it takes some real

planning, study and action to get that done. It’s more than just talk.”

One clear sign of that action, Brown believes, is the Northland Avenue Workforce Development Center, an abandoned factory complex where the state and the city are planning state-of-the-art classrooms and workshops with the goal of providing job training in emerging fields to underserved communities. The center is scheduled to open in 2017.

The city also bought up a series of surrounding properties in the Delavan-Grider neighborhood on Buffalo’s East Side, many with abandoned industrial buildings still standing, and will partner with companies to bring in the kind of jobs the development center will be training people to perform. Brown said he had been envisioning such an ambitious project, but previously he had not been able to secure the kind of funding it would require.

Then, when Cuomo announced the Buffalo Billion in 2012, Brown knew he had a chance at making those plans real. The state has been fully on board, committing $44 million to the Workforce Development Center project, in addition to $4 million from the city,

“IT’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE IF YOU CONTINUE THIS REAGANOMICS OF, ‘LET’S GIVE MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES THE RESOURCES AND HOPEFULLY THAT WILL MAKE THE POVERT Y BET TER.’” John Washington, PUSH Buffalo community organizer while also taking the lead on the project’s implementation.

At the same time, the city, county and state are trying to address poverty on a litany of different fronts.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz last year introduced a plan to connect and streamline services from social services providers to help people who are struggling financially.

Assemblyman Sean Ryan has proposed that the state set up an outfit that would operate like an employment agency but include outreach in zip codes with poverty rates above 50 percent.

A few years ago Buffalo public

“We’re going to train people in areas that are growing, where there are jobs in this community, so that it’s not simply an exercise in training,” Brown said. “It will be training that will provide people the opportunity to be prepared for the jobs that are coming online for our community.”

Many experts expect more job opportunities in coming years. The state Department of Labor’s longterm estimates project the region gaining more than 52,000 jobs between 2012 and 2022, with growth exceeding 15 percent in a number of industries, including business services, the hospitality industry and health care. The arts

NANCY PARISI

CityAndStateNY.com

and entertainment field is expected to grow by 25 percent in that time.

Construction should see almost 3,300 new jobs, and many in the industry predict far more than that.

At the Beverly Gray Business Exchange Center now being set up by the city, business consultants are helping minority contractors in an effort to increase the number of minority- and women-owned businesses capable of handling large-scale construction work. Both the state and city have participation minimums for those groups on jobs that receive public funding.

Still, about 30 percent of Buffalo’s residents have been living below the federal poverty line for years, and the city has consistently ranked among the poorest mid-size cities in the nation. About half of Buffalo’s kids fall into that category.

Brown believes the focus from the state and the plans his administration has coordinated with various government and community partners will eventually have the city climbing out of the hole of deep poverty it has been sliding into for decades.

“There was no discussion about these things 10 years ago,” Brown said. “It’s a different time. There are different opportunities and people are energized to work together to make a difference in these issues.”

THE SKEPTICS Last fall a crowd gathered outside the Riverbend site in South Buffalo, where the state is investing $750 million to build a 1 million squarefoot solar panel factory to be operated by California-based SolarCity. The group was not there to celebrate progress on the massive plant, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a slew of dignitaries had during the summer. They were there to call on those same leaders to address the decrease in minority hiring goals at the construction site, as the Investigative Post had reported.

At another event a few months later in January, a coalition of clergy, labor leaders and advocacy organizations called on officials with influence over the distribution of money from Cuomo’s Buffalo

15

Billion initiative and other economic development funds to address the longstanding barriers to quality employment for people of color.

The coalition cited a report they had commissioned, written by the Partnership for the Public Good, showing that African-Americans and Latinos had unemployment rates more than twice as high as their white counterparts. While the trend is consistent with the rest of the country, the numbers in Buffalo and Erie County were worse than state and national averages. The average unemployment rate for African-Americans from 2010 to 2014 was 16.1 percent nationally and 14.4 percent in New York, compared with 17.3 percent in Erie County and 19.2 percent in Buffalo.

African-Americans and Hispanics also earn far less, at 71 cents and 73 cents, respectively, for every dollar a white worker makes.

With the frustration of citizens and advocates beginning to boil up in recent years, politicians have repeated catchphrases – “rising tides lift all boats,” “the renaissance will reach every corner of the city” – to reassure them that the massive investment would provide them with jobs.

Manufacturing is making a comeback, they’ve said. High-end jobs on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, a collection of higher education institutions, health care providers and community groups that oversee millions of square feet of research and clinical space just east of downtown, will result in spinoff jobs for servers and bartenders.

Hockey tournaments and tourism will create more positions at hotels.

But many advocates remain highly skeptical, and are keeping a close eye on labor numbers and the pulse in the communities they work with, constantly assessing whether any change is truly occurring.

“This is a racist city and the Buffalo Billion is no different,” John Washington, community organizer for the West Side-based PUSH Buffalo, said at the rally in front of the Riverbend site last fall, his booming voice radiating over the buzz of diesel trucks and buses rolling by the crowd. “The Buffalo Billion has been racistly applied.”

“WHEN I FIRST STARTED IN THIS JOB 10 YEARS AGO THE DEBATE WASN’T WHETHER THERE WOULD BE A JOB FOR EVERYBODY. IT WAS WHETHER THERE WOULD BE A JOB FOR ANYBODY.” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown

Washington, who is AfricanAmerican, stresses that he isn’t trying to downplay the impact of Cuomo’s investments in Buffalo.

But if politicians are going to claim that they are aiming to alleviate poverty, he said, they need to have their feet held to the fire.

At Riverbend, Washington sees real opportunity, but only if a comprehensive effort is made to ensure that people of color, the chronically unemployed and other disenfranchised groups are aggressively sought after

by SolarCity. So far, with the construction work at the site and what he has heard from people in the community about job recruitment efforts, he is unimpressed.

“There’s so much that could be done in the middle, logistically, that could provide the impact that we want and the impact that we’re told in the language coming out, that this is supposed to change Buffalo, that this is supposed to be the new Bethlehem Steel,” he said.

This sort of top-down investment fits into the same old mold,

Washington said, where people in power are awarded state money to build developments that may do more to build wealth for the people at the top than create solid jobs.

“It’s not going to change if you continue this Reaganomics of, ‘Let’s give millionaires and billionaires the resources and hopefully that will make the poverty better,’” Washington asserted.

For the Buffalo Billion initiative to truly address poverty, one of its key goals, the state must invest in training programs with supports, like access to doctors and day care, that help participants deal with other obstacles to employment, Washington said.

Many organizations are already in place and capable of scaling up their operations to make a significant impact if they had the resources, he added.

The Outsource Center, an East Side-based construction training program mostly funded by its founder, Spencer Gaskin, has awarded certificates to more than 400 participants, but is now in

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Crews work to complete the University at Buffalo’s new medical school on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

CityAndStateNY.com

a holding pattern as it searches for additional funding. It Takes a Village, also on the East Side, connects job seekers with employers while providing training and other supports.

Washington’s group, PUSH, which has broadened its scope from its roots as a housing advocacy group, has invested in its community, hiring people from the neighborhood and providing job training as it restores homes to be rented to low-income families.

Its leaders believe that, if given adequate resources, they could move outside their home base on the West Side.

Washington said he has high hopes for the state-funded Workforce Development Center being developed on Northland Avenue, though he remains cautiously optimistic. The center could serve as a place for many organizations already in place to grow, along with the workforce, in one of the city’s more job-starved neighborhoods.

Still, Washington wonders what would happen if the state and city were as committed to developing talent in struggling areas as they are to building.

The medical campus has garnered more than $500 million in government buy-in. The Riverbend site is getting three-quarters of a billion dollars. In contrast, the Workforce Development Center will receive just $50 million in public money.

“If you look at things that impact people of color, we’re always getting the crumbs in comparison,” Washington said.

Sam Magavern, the co-director of the Partnership for the Public Good, shares many of Washington’s concerns. His organization has fought for years to tie quality jobs for people in the region most in need of work to any public investment in projects.

Yet one challenge is that there are so many low-paying jobs that people living in poverty are not able to break that cycle, even if they are working full time, he said. Research conducted by the Partnership for the Public Good over the years has

CityAndStateNY.com

consistently shown that about a third of the jobs in the Buffalo-Niagara region are low-wage.

“We think, really, the future of the region depends a lot on what’s the quality of those jobs,” Magavern said. “We’re talking about like a third of the people working. If they’re earning poverty-level wages we’re not going to have a strong region.”

Part of the reason that AfricanAmericans are disproportionately in those low-wage jobs or unemployed is because the neighborhood one lives in correlates with one’s ability to generate wealth.

Buffalo is the sixth most segregated city in the nation, Census data shows.

More than 80 percent of AfricanAmericans live in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with about 10 percent of white city residents.

“There are all these issues that feed into it,” Magavern said. “But they all start with economic and racial inequality. They just manifest in different ways.”

KNOWLEDGE Back at a workshop on Buffalo State’s campus, Tuan Jones shuffles around the room, helping some of his

17

classmates as they work to finish their projects in the waning sun of a late winter afternoon.

When he started the advanced manufacturing training last May, Jones was one of 12 trainees hoping to find their way into good-paying, steady work. He is now one of eight still standing after some participants dropped out. For these dropouts, some of the same barriers to finding regular employment – a lack of child care, inadequate transportation – likely played a part in their decision to quit.

Jones is part of the first group to go through the program. Two more classes have started since his, with 25 additional students working with instructors and using what was learned in his group to improve the program.

Jones’ group will graduate in May. While the time they’ve spent on the machines will be a drop in the bucket compared with what it takes to be a master of the craft, their certificates will make them eligible for entrylevel positions with starting wages above $20 an hour.

“This has been the best opportunity I have,” Jones said.

“I’m learning so much.”

Students tighten solar panels to a false roof as part of a green construction program at McKinley High School, one of several training programs paid for by state grants and run by Buffalo Public Schools to connect students to emerging industries.

A train travels along the belt line, a loop of track that was once integral to Buffalo’s position as a hub of freight transportation, as construction crews work feverishly to complete the massive Riverbend solar panel manufacturing facility in the distance.

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CityAndStateNY.com

SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION

CONTENTS

A few big issues have dominated the discussion in the state Capitol so far this year. A $15 per hour minimum wage. Twelve weeks of paid family leave. Various proposals to clean up Albany.

But just as important is an issue that is hotly debated year after year: education.

While the clash over the state’s Common Core standards has receded, one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top priorities this year is a $100 million fund for community schools, the latest step in his effort to turn around failing schools.

And in the perennial battle over school aid, some experts and officials are hoping this year could be a turning point in restoring long-promised funding.

In this special section on education, City & State also provides updates on mayoral control, charter schools, pre-K and other policy issues.

Want to learn more? Read on.

20 … OFFICIALS, ADVOCATES HOPE THIS YEAR IS A TURNING POINT FOR STATE EDUCATION FUNDING

By Ashley Hupfl

22 … COMMUNITY SCHOOLS WORK, EXPERTS SAY – BUT HOW WILL THE STATE AFFORD THEM?

By Ashley Hupfl 24 … A PRIMER ON THE KEY EDUCATION ISSUES IN ALBANY

By Ashley Hupfl

26 … A RECAP OF CITY & STATE’S COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYMPOSIUM

Support Support the the public public schools schools and and colleges colleges our our kids kids deserve. deserve.

For For the the first first time time in in years, years, New New York York State State has has aa $5.4 $5.4 billion billion budget budget surplus, surplus, instead instead of of aa deficit. deficit.

State State lawmakers lawmakers should should use use some some of of that that surplus surplus now, now, to to correct correct years years of of inadequate inadequate funding funding for for public public education. education.

Moreover, Moreover, the the flawed flawed tax tax cap cap law law has has worsened worsened the the funding funding problem. problem. Because Because the the tax tax cap cap is is near near zero, zero, school school districts districts across across the the state state are are unable unable to to raise raise the the revenue revenue needed needed to to provide provide the the academic academic and and support support services services our our kids kids need need and and deserve. deserve. In In fact, fact, more more than than ten ten percent percent of of school school districts districts will will be be forced forced to to cut cut their their school school budgets, budgets, inflicting inflicting even even more more pain pain on on students. students.

NYSUT NYSUT isis calling calling for: for: n n aa school school aid aid increase increase of of $2.5 $2.5 billion billion and, and, n n a a $1

$1 billion billion increase increase in in state state funding funding for for SUNY, SUNY, CUNY CUNY and and New New York’s York’s community community colleges. colleges.

Karen E. Magee, President Karen E. Magee, President Andrew Pallotta, Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta, Executive Vice President Catalina R. Fortino, Vice President Catalina R. Fortino, Vice President Paul Pecorale, Vice President Paul Pecorale, Vice President Martin Messner, Secretary-Treasurer Martin Messner, Secretary-Treasurer

Our Our kids kids and and college college students students deserve deserve more. more. Increase Increase state state aid aid to to public public education. education.

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CityAndStateNY.com

FINANCIAL AID

Officials, advocates hope this year is a turning point for state education funding

By ASHLEY HUPFL

The total school aid increase in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget is $991 million, raising it 4.3 percent.

FOLLOWING THE CAMPAIGN for Fiscal Equity court decision in 2006, which ruled the state was failing to provide students with funding necessary to receive a “sound basic education,” education advocates rejoiced and hoped the decision would bring a new, better age for the way New York state funds education.

It didn’t turn out that way. The state increased school aid to confront the problem over the next two years, but in 2009, as a result of the Great Recession, the additional school aid under the CFE decision – called foundation aid – was frozen. The state also created the Gap Elimination Adjustment, or GEA, that same year to help close the state’s budget deficit.

Then in 2011, Gov. Andrew Cuomo instituted a property tax cap that limited spending growth in school districts.

“State aid is obviously a very important component for all school districts, but particularly for lowerwealth districts, because they can’t raise as much money on property taxes as say a wealthier district,” said David Albert, communications director for the state School Boards Association. “Districts don’t always have the capacity to raise sufficient funding locally to support their education programs and obviously we got off track with foundation aid with the recession and then the GEA being put in place, but I think that we’re kind of turning the corner now.”

Indeed, many education experts see the 2016-17 budget as a potential turning point for education funding in New York.

The state is in much better fiscal health, and the recent multimilliondollar bank settlements, they believe, create an opportunity for the state to finally make good on failed promises to better fund the education system.

In his executive budget this year, Cuomo has proposed a $266 million increase in foundation aid.

Additionally, Cuomo has proposed the elimination of the GEA over a two-year period, allocating $189 million for this year’s budget. The total school aid increase in the governor’s budget – including the foundation aid, funds to close the

GEA and other funds – is $991 million, raising it 4.3 percent to a proposed $24.22 billion.

The state Senate proposed a larger increase of $1.6 billion, while the Assembly proposed a $2.13 billion increase.

In their one-house budgets, both the Assembly and state Senate called for the elimination of the GEA in one year.

State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who formerly served as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has long championed the elimination of the GEA. In January, Flanagan insisted there would be no budget deal without the full elimination of the GEA this year.

“I am very confident and comfortable saying as chair of the Education Committee for five years and now working very closely with Sens. LaValle and Marcellino, who chairs our committee, the New York state Senate Republican conference has been out front on the elimination of the GEA since the get-go,” Flanagan said on the state Senate floor this month. “We didn’t support it at its inception, we have been pushing and pushing and pushing and – yes – pushing to make sure we get rid of it.”

The state Senate one-house budget also allocates $880 million for an increase in foundation aid and the Assembly one-house budget allocates $1.1 billion for foundation aid. Both houses are trying to catch up to spending promised under the foundation aid formula, which they estimate has $4.4 billion remaining in funds that were promised as a result of the CFE decision but were never spent. “(The foundation aid increase) is

CityAndStateNY.com

a very important difference between the Assembly and Senate proposal. The Assembly has a fouryear phase-in so that schools can get the money they need,” said Billy Easton, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group closely aligned with the Assembly Democratic conference. “Neither the governor nor the Senate has made that commitment and we need that commitment and we need it in this budget now.”

A recent audit conducted by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office found the state should improve its education aid formula and provide more equitable funding for schools. In the report, DiNapoli also urged lawmakers to adopt a more equitable and transparent funding model.

“As stakeholders undertake planning and negotiation for the upcoming budget, there is an opportunity to work towards a simplified, more equitable and transparent model for funding education in New York state,” the report said.

Education advocates said if the state fully funded the foundation aid formula and closed the GEA

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this year, school districts around the state would be in a significantly better financial position.

“There are 20 different ways that you could change the way public schools are funded, but at the end of the day the only number that matters is the final school aid number,” said Carl Korn, chief press officer for NYSUT, the state teachers union. “There have been many proposals over the last few decades on how to change how schools are funded. It would be a little flippant to say we don’t care how they’re funded, but at the end of the day, what’s most important is that our public schools are funded properly to ensure any child – no matter their zip code – has an equal opportunity to succeed.”

Albert also said the state aid component is critical because it’s difficult for school districts to exceed the state’s property tax cap, noting that districts can only override it with a 60 percent supermajority.

“So, where are they going to get the money to support the educational programs if they can’t raise it through local property taxes?” Albert asked. “It’s going to have to come from the state.”

The Must-Read Morning Roundup of New York Politics and Government This daily email is the most efficient and effective digital resource to get your message in front of top city and state elected officials, agency and industry leaders, and the staff, advocates, media and operatives who drive the issues of the day—all by 7am each weekday!

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State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan insisted there would be no budget deal without the full elimination of the Gap Elimination Adjustment this year.

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22

CityAndStateNY.com

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS WORK, EXPERTS SAY – BUT HOW WILL THE STATE AFFORD THEM?

Cuomo announces his community schools plan in his State of the State speech.

EDUCATORS AND ELECTED officials in New York have long tried to improve struggling schools.

Most recently, Gov. Andrew Cuomo allocated $100 million in his 2016-17 executive budget proposal to convert them into community schools in a bid to turn around highneeds districts.

Community schools are an attempt to address student performance by providing services for the community, such as health and legal services, afterschool programs and day care. A “struggling school” is one with low student test scores or graduation rates.

While usually at odds with one another, the state teachers union and education advocates have both applauded the governor’s efforts.

Nonetheless, some experts worry the state will not allocate enough money to properly implement the community schools model.

“I think the one thing we would say is that community schools can be expensive to implement, and I

think that it would probably need more funding than the governor initially proposed, so we’ll have to see how that plays out during the budget negotiations,” said David Albert, communications director for the state School Boards Association.

“But, we do see the community school model as one that holds great promise for improving schools.

We support it and would like to see more financial support.”

Of the $100 million in Cuomo’s proposal, $75 million would be allocated among 17 school districts which currently house either a school that has been struggling for a relatively short time or a “persistently struggling” school, which means it has been facing challenges since 2006. The schools will be identified by the state Education Department based on test scores and graduation rates over a decade.

Currently there are 178 “priority” – or failing – schools in the state, according to a 2015 report by Cuomo’s office. Of that number,

77 have been failing for a decade, with more than 250,000 students passing through those schools since 2005.

Cuomo last year tried to address the problem by imposing a stricter teacher evaluation system tied to state tests. He also included in last year’s budget a state receivership system that would allow the state to appoint an outside receiver to step in and oversee a school that has been struggling. Facing backlash, he ultimately walked away from the new teacher evaluation system.

“When you look at the schools that are facing receivership, the wealthiest of them have two-thirds of students living in poverty,” said Carl Korn, chief press officer for NYSUT, the state teachers union.

“Students living in poverty and their families face issues that many times are overlooked in the debate about school aid and student achievement.

The community schools model supports students and their families by providing the necessary services, and that’s the right way to address schools that are struggling because it takes aim at the No. 1 factor – and that’s poverty.”

Experts applauded Cuomo for including the initiative in his executive budget, but several said they prefer the Assembly’s onehouse budget, which includes an additional $100 million for community schools, which would bring the total to $200 million.

The Senate one-house budget rejects the executive budget’s proposal to provide $100 million for community schools.

Earlier in March, a state Senate spokesman told Chalkbeat that school districts could decide whether to opt to spend their additional foundation aid funding

on community schools.

“I certainly want to see every sector of government – the Senate, the Assembly and the executive – support fairness in our struggling schools, which is to give them enough time to be successful, which is not to say they have forever, but a fair enough amount of time and, certainly, the resources they need to have the kind of wraparound services they need to make these schools more successful,” said Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee.

Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy research and communications for the state Council of School Superintendents, estimated that the $100 million in the governor’s budget would cover basic operating costs but not much more, and he called for more money for community schools and for the public school system as a whole.

“Community schools are a vehicle for addressing those nonacademic issues that can get in the way of success in school,” Lowry said. “But if you’re going to provide funding for new initiatives, how does that balance against the ability of the state to provide adequate general funding for schools?”

Experts say community schools are more expensive to operate than regular public schools, given the additional services they provide.

“It is expensive and we do have to look at the cost and what it really takes to do it effectively and really provide the kinds of services (needed),” Albert said. “I think the Legislature and the governor are going to have to really look at what it costs to do the community schools model effectively.”

DARREN MCGEE / OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

By ASHLEY HUPFL

HANY is a broad coalition of educators, parents, civic and business groups unified by the belief that high standards and rigorous assessments are essential to ensure that all our kids, no matter where they come from, graduate from high school ready for college and careers.

Albany Colonie Chamber of Commerce

Educators 4 Excellence

America Achieves

Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier

American Association of University Women

National Council of La Raza

Association for a Better New York

New York Campaign for Achievement Now

Bethlehem Parents for Excellence

New York Urban League

Buffalo ReformEd

Otsego County Chamber of Commerce

Buffalo Niagara Partnership

Partnership for Inner-City Education

Buffalo Urban League

Parent Power Project- Rochester

Business Council of New York State, Inc.

Printing Industries Alliance

Business Council of Westchester

StudentsFirstNY

Center for American Progress

Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce

Committee for Hispanic Families and Children

Urban League of Rochester

Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce

Urban League of Westchester

Council for a Strong America

www.highachievementny.org

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CityAndStateNY.com

CAPITOL CLIFFS NOTES

By ASHLEY HUPFL

A STUDY GUIDE FOR KEY EDUCATION ISSUES IN ALBANY From school funding to state standards, education is always at the top of the agenda in Albany. Here’s a crash course on a few other key issues in New York.

COMMON CORE The controversial Common Core standards and related teacher evaluations have dominated the education agenda during Andrew Cuomo’s tenure as governor. First, it was the fallout of the initiative’s implementation, which many have called “flawed” and “uneven.” Cuomo’s push to tie a new teacher evaluation system to student performance on the state tests caused the political conversation around the curriculum to grow so heated that last fall he finally announced the state would overhaul Common Core.

During his teacher evaluation push, Cuomo faced a heavy political attack from the state’s teachers union. Cuomo created a new Common Core task force in September, and in December the task force released its final report. The task force recommended the state review the current Common Core standards, the quality of the state tests and examine how schools can cut back on the length and number of tests after many parents and teachers accused school districts of “teaching to the test.” As part of the overhaul, the task force recommended the state hold off on tying teacher evaluations to state tests until the 2019-20 academic school

year, when the new statewide standards will be put into place.

FUNDING FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

MAYORAL CONTROL

Both the governor and state Senate propose $27 million in direct support for charter schools.

The governor’s executive budget also would eliminate a facilities aid formula for New York City charter schools that are denied co-location and makes permanent an alternate, expiring formula that provides additional facilities aid to city charter schools. The state Senate supports these proposals, but expands them.

Additionally, the state Senate proposes increasing charter school tuition rates in New York City and establishing building aid for charter schools statewide.

Their proposal would allow charters to participate in fullday pre-kindergarten programs without signing a contract with a collaborating district and would maintain supplemental basic tuition payments to charter schools of $500 per student, while eliminating the state reimbursement, shifting additional costs to districts. The Assembly’s one-house budget rejects all of the governor’s charter school proposals. The Assembly, largely aligned with the state teachers union, proposed several new accountability measures, including new disciplinary

Mayoral control, which has been in place since 2002, is set to expire again on June 30. The law gives the mayor of New York City the power to choose the schools chancellor, oversee the education budget and set policies for the city’s 1,600 district schools. At the end of the session last year, Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan failed to reach a longterm solution for mayoral control and instead agreed to a oneyear extension. The executive budget offers a compromise on the issue, proposing a threeyear extension, as it did last year. The Democrat-controlled Assembly, which has closer ties to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, has proposed a sevenyear extension, as it did last year.

The Republican-dominated state Senate rejects even a three-year extension of the law, leaving the future of mayoral control uncertain. Mayoral control briefly expired in 2009 when lawmakers were unable to reach a deal, but was ultimately renewed by the end of the summer.

procedures, a reduction in the number of uncertified teachers employed in charters and a requirement that charter schools established in conjunction with a nonprofit disclose the extent of the nonprofit’s participation in management and operation of charter schools.

PRE-K FUNDING After a major push in 2014, $1.5 billion was included in the 201415 state budget for statewide fullday pre-kindergarten. Last year, an additional $30 million was included in the budget to expand the program for 3-year-olds. This year, Cuomo proposed adding another $22 million for 3-year-olds in pre-K, as well as establishing a grant board to oversee the three existing pre-K grant programs.

The governor, Assembly speaker and state Senate majority leader would each appoint a member to the three-member board, and the state Office of Children and Family Services would serve as staff for the board. Cuomo also proposes that any state-funded pre-K program found in need of “extraordinary quality support” from state agencies would be required to participate in the QUALITYstarsNY project, which reviews early education programs, as a condition for receiving state

CityAndStateNY.com

25

funding. Both the Assembly and state Senate reject the proposals to create a new board and adopt QUALITYstarsNY. The Assembly proposes an increase of $22 million this year and provides a five-year financial assistance program for school districts offering new full-day kindergarten.

SUNY/CUNY2020 NYSUNY2020 and NYCUNY2020 were established in 2011 with the intent to keep tuition increases low and predictable. Previously, college and university students were subject to unscheduled and drastic tuition increases. The law is set to expire on July 1, 2016. Cuomo’s executive

budget proposes extending the legislation for an additional five years. SUNY and CUNY schools would be allowed to raise tuition up to $300 annually, but would have to demonstrate efforts to reduce spending and prove any increase is tied to appropriate needs. However, the Assembly is proposing a two-year tuition freeze and has committed to fighting Cuomo’s plan to have New York City pick up $486 million to fund CUNY. The state Senate supports Cuomo’s fiveyear extension, and opposes the Assembly’s push for a two-year tuition freeze. In addition, the state Senate proposes increasing the income eligibility and Tuition Assistance Program awards, creating a new tax exemption for student loan interest and

increasing the amount of the Tuition Tax Credit.

EDUCATION INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT The Education Investment Tax Credit, also known as the Parental Choice in Education Act in the executive budget, has stalled in the state Legislature in recent years. Last year, Cuomo tried to pass it by tying it to the Dream Act, another piece of legislation that has stalled in the last few years. The Assembly has long championed the Dream Act, which would give undocumented immigrants who meet certain conditions access to state financial aid, while blocking the EITC; the state Senate is in favor of the EITC, but is staunchly

opposed to the Dream Act. The executive budget proposes a $150 million annual income tax credit for donations to educational organizations, for private and public school tuition and for teacher-purchased classroom supplies. Under the governor’s proposal, donations by individuals or businesses can receive a tax credit for up to 75 percent of their donations. The Assembly has once again rejected the proposal.

The state Senate would amend the governor’s proposal and replace it with the version it passed in January. The state Senate’s bill would allow up to $300 million annually in state general funds to cover tax credits from donors who contribute to educational scholarship organizations and other local education funds.

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26

CityAndStateNY.com

PREPPING STUDENTS FOR THE WORKFORCE Amid a fight over funding of CUNY colleges in the state budget, City & State hosted a discussion on community colleges’ role in preparing students for the jobs that exist around the Empire State. Check out what our expert panel had to say.

LESLIE WHATLEY Executive vice president, Start-Up NY, Empire State Development

TOBY ANN STAVISKY Democratic state senator, Queens

“This state is blessed because it ’s so big and it ’s so

“I’m concerned about how more and more of the burden is

diverse. We have every thing from agribusiness to brew-

falling on the students and not the state. It is our obliga-

eries to high tech to biomedical science. … This state

tion in the state to provide for higher education services.

produces 40,000 STEM grads a year. That ’s a phenomenal

… I keep repeating that public higher education in New

number. Part of why Start Up is an important program is

York state and in the city is just remarkable. What you’re

that historically, we’ve exported a lot of those students

getting in public higher education is a Tif fany education at

because the jobs weren’t for them here. We want the jobs

Target prices.”

for them here so they can stay here!”

SURI DUITCH University dean for continuing education and workforce development, CUNY

JOHANNA DUNCAN-POITIER Senior vice chancellor for community colleges and the education pipeline, SUNY

“ We know that a college degree is the single best work-

“Honestly, if we don’t support with base aid our commu-

force credential there is, both in terms of skills and in

nity colleges as we’ve described, the charge goes to the

terms of credentials that employers understand. It is a

students and if students have to pay more in tuition, then

pathway to the middle class, and it enriches everyone

we have a problem in terms of our society. … Every single

when we improve our community college graduation rates

penny counts when we talk about operating aid that we do

and improve the quality of education that people get. It ’s a

not have to transfer to our students in the way of tuition.

total win-win for all of us.”

That ’s what public higher education is all about.”

CityAndStateNY.com

Quick Takes

CARL MARCELLINO CHAIRMAN, SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE

Quick Takes

CATHERINE NOLAN CHAIRWOMAN, ASSEMBLY EDUCATION COMMITTEE

27

ON WHY THE GAP ELIMINATION ADJUSTMENT SHOULD BE ELIMINATED ...

“The Gap Elimination Adjustment was instituted in 2010 when Democrats, controlling the state Senate, Assembly and governor’s office, used it as a budget maneuver to help close a multibillion-dollar deficit.

Since then, it has resulted in billions of dollars less to school districts, placed greater strain on local taxpayers and led to a reduction in educational resources for students across the state. It was the wrong choice then and must be swept away for good.

“I voted against the GEA in 2010 and have been working since then to end it. My Senate Republican colleagues and I have led the fight for funding restorations to the GEA: $229 million in 2011-12; $400.2 million in 2012-13; $517.5 million in 2013-14; $602 million in 2014-15 and $607 million in 2015-16.

“Without a doubt, as I meet with school district officials from all parts of the state, the GEA is bemoaned as enemy No. 1. As districts work to craft and enact responsible school budgets in 2016, we can no longer ask them to accept another year of this burdensome and draconian fiscal gimmick.

“There is roughly $434 million left to totally remove the GEA affliction across the state during this budget cycle. For the past five years, we have adopted on-time, responsible budgets that have put our state back on a solid economic footing. We owe it to every student, teacher and taxpayer to prioritize increasing funding for all of our schools, and the full purge of the GEA is a critical piece to a successful state budget this year.

“Our schools should not have to wait one more day to permanently eradicate this bad idea, let alone another year. Any final budget deal in 2016 must include the complete elimination of GEA.”

ON WHETHER THE LEGISLATURE SHOULD EXTEND MAYORAL CONTROL …

“Mayoral control has brought a lot of consistency to the system, and when you care about equity in education and equity in allocation of resources, mayoral control has helped that happen. So there’s been consistency in the system. The community school boards, which have been around for a long time, were plagued by many problems, one of which was certainly corruption, but also inefficiency and duplication of services. So, I think it’s been a valuable thing to have mayoral control. I think (Mayor Bill) de Blasio deserves to be treated the same way Michael Bloomberg was treated, which would be with a seven-year extender. I think Carmen Fariña is the best thing that’s happened to the New York City school district in forever – and I’ve been involved for years – and I think you need to let professionals like her lead and let women lead, which I’m very excited about. I think the upstate Senate Republicans, Long Island Republicans, will hurt the children in New York City by not renewing mayoral control. It would be a very sad thing.”

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28

NYSlant.com

A fresh perspective on opinions Edited by NICK POWELL

Analysis reveals NYC schools may be doing better than rest of state

By RAYMOND DOMANICO

CRITICS OF NEW YORK CITY’S Department of Education have been pointing to the results of the state English language arts and mathematics test results released last summer to demonstrate the apparent failure of the city’s traditional public schools.

The results weren’t stellar – only 35 percent of students in the city’s traditional public schools were deemed proficient in math and 30 percent were proficient in ELA – but the challenges the city faces are shared by the rest of the state as well.

These low scores statewide mask a more nuanced picture.

The 2015 test results show the continuation of a slow and

steady shift in the relative performance of city schools compared with schools in the rest of the state. This shift has been underway since the onset of mayoral control, a trend that continued across dramatic changes to the state’s testing program and across city mayoral administrations.

Today, city students’ performance in ELA is essentially the same as those in the rest of the state, and less than 3 percentage points behind the state average in math. This is dramatically different than the relative standing of the city and state in 2006, when the city lagged the state by 11 percentage

points in ELA and 9 points in math.

Generally, test results for schools tend to be

RELATED TO THE D E M O G R A P HIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR STUDENTS. We have

looked at the results for public schools statewide, while controling for differences in the student populations. After controlling for school-level differences in the student poverty level, special education status, gender and race, schools in New York City are doing better than those in the rest of the state. After controlling for these demographics, we found a 14-point advantage for New York City traditional public schools over schools in the rest of the state on the ELA test and a 15-point advantage in math. Both traditional public schools and charter schools in the city are doing better than schools in the rest of New York state when differences in student demographics are considered.

These findings have a number of implications.

First, if there is an achievement crisis in the state, it is not limited to New York City schools, since the city’s unadjusted scores are almost on par with the rest of the state and are better when considering differences in the school populations.

Second, improving educational opportunities for

MAY NOT BE AS SIMPLE AS EXPANDING THE SIZE OF THE CHARTER SECTOR city students

in New York City, as some have suggested. Individual school quality matters a lot, and schools in both sectors vary greatly in terms of quality and student make-up.

When we look at the highest-achieving traditional public schools, we find that many of those schools are selective schools or are located in

NEIG H B OR H O O DS WITH LESS CH ALLEN GIN G SOCIAL AND E C O N O M I C CONDITIONS. The

city’s Department of Education must continue to find ways to improve educational performance in the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods.

With mayoral control of the city’s schools up for renewal by Albany, it’s worth noting that under the current system, the city as a whole has been catching up and surpassing New York state’s schools.

In New York City, this is a testament to the hard work going on in traditional public and charter schools.

Clearly, though, there is more work to be done as too many schools throughout the state lag far behind their peers.

Raymond Domanico is the director of education research at the Independent Budget Office. To read the full IBO report on city and state school testing results, visit ibo.nyc. ny.us.

NYSlant.com

29

DON’T LET CUOMO AND DE BLASIO DRAG SUNY AND CUNY DOWN WITH THEM

LITTLENY / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

By RICHARD BRODSKY

NEW YORK HAS two of the finest higher education systems in the world, both of them public institutions.

SUNY has 64 campuses, a million and a half students, and jewels like SUNY Purchase and Stony Brook. CUNY has 27 institutions, over half a million students and 13 Nobel Prize winners to its credit. Both are academically excellent, real bargains financially, pathways upward for new Americans and absolutely essential to the economic and social realities of our time.

Both systems are also in crisis and the subject of a public debate on whether to rearrange the power relationships that define them. This discussion could help continue CUNY and SUNY’s excellence or hurt the systems in the long-term.

Both CUNY and SUNY are reeling from years of neglect and budget cuts: Fewer full-time faculty members, more adjuncts, wage freezes and labor unrest, deteriorating physical plants and significant tuition increases.

That’s true of public higher education across the nation, not just in New York. Years of austerity policies and tax cuts are taking a toll on our roads and bridges, cultural institutions, public schools and higher education. SUNY and CUNY are poster children for that dismal reality.

As if that’s not enough,

THE CONTINUING FOOD FIGHT BETWEEN NEW YORK CITY MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO AND GOV. ANDREW CUOMO IS RAISING THE STAKES. Cuomo has

attacked high salaries and administrative overhead at both systems. Jim Malatras, Cuomo’s director of state operations, lambasted the “golden parachute” for CUNY’s previous chancellor. And the governor included a budget proposal to hike the city’s contribution to CUNY by half a billion dollars.

De Blasio shot back: Shifting additional costs to the city is “not fair” and “threatens our ability to serve our people.”

But even with the fate of CUNY and SUNY being dragged into the Cuomo/de Blasio discord, there actually may be an opportunity to sort out some of the problems, at CUNY especially.

CUNY was a Nelson Rockefeller merger of Brooklyn College, Queens College, the Free Academy (CCNY) and the Female Normal and High School (Hunter). Over the years it has expanded greatly, started charging tuition, created an open admissions policy that resulted in skyrocketing attendance and created a network of community colleges.

But no one has paid attention to intrinsic flaws in its budget and governance structures, which are emerging as the political fight escalates.

The state pays 45 percent of CUNY costs, students pay 45 percent, and the city only 10 percent. Yet the city appoints one-third of CUNY’s board. Hmmm. Maybe Cuomo is on to something.

Cuomo sort of backed off his first shot, largely because cuts in aid to the city of any kind are rightly unpopular.

After all, the city sends Albany significantly more in state taxes than it gets back in state aid.

So some deep thinkers are trying to make lemonade out of this lemon. Cue Gale Brewer, the shrewd and caring

Manhattan borough president: “It makes no sense for CUNY to be part of an annual tug of war. Let the city step up and pay the bulk of the public cost for CUNY. Let the city take charge of governance.”

Simple and sensible.

Brewer’s suggestion comes with caveats: “Given how much cash we send to Albany, this is not the place to slash state aid to the city. The mayor and governor should figure out how to make this budget neutral for both. That won’t be hard to do.”

The bigger problem is power and cooperation. As former Lt. Gov. Dick Ravitch points out, “It makes eminent sense to have the city pay for and be responsible for CUNY. The mayor and governor need to work together to get this done.”

The Legislature, especially the Democrat-controlled Assembly, can help make this happen. New Speaker Carl Heastie knows and protects CUNY when he can.

Higher Education Committee Chairwoman Deborah Glick does the same.

This will also help SUNY, which has problems of its

own. SUNY will benefit from a clearer focus within state government, and an end to annual competition with CUNY for limited state dollars.

CUNY will have a single master, and its city-centric mission will be easier.

We tend to take the successes of our higher education systems for granted, and there’s been no discussion of how we run CUNY and SUNY for decades. Now is the time. In the end, de Blasio and Cuomo have to decide to continue their unending war, or to find a place to make the peace. Let’s see if Brewer, Glick and Heastie can use their wiles on the mayor and governor and, in the words of a great New Yorker, Do The Right Thing.

Richard Brodsky is a former state assemblyman.

He serves as a senior fellow at both Demos and NYU’s Wagner School and is a regular columnist for the Albany Times Union and The Huffington Post.

30

CityAndStateNY.com

THE STREETFIGHTER

Think of all of the additional housing or HOV lane or bike lane miles that you could put into place. And so I think the ultimate goal is to move people, and not fancy new cars. So all levels of government will need to step in to make sure the technology makes streets safer for people on foot and bicycle and the disabled and the elderly, rather than just maximizing efficiency for the cars.

So-called bicycle visionary Janette SadikKhan was New York City’s transportation commissioner for more than six years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and is currently Bloomberg Associates’ transportation principal. Her new book, “Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution,” is out now. Sadik-Khan spoke with City & State’s Jeff Coltin about safer streets, self-driving cars and her love of green paint. The following is an edited transcript.

C&S: Unlike many city commissioners, a transportation chief’s projects are very visible and interactive. How did that affect how you approached your job?

JSK: Transportation touches people’s lives every day in a way that other operations don’t. People take our streets very seriously, and there’s a good reason why. When you think about it, the hardware on our streets very much affects how our streets operate.

So changing the operating code of our city streets really has an effect on how people get around and how they feel about the city and the quality of life of their city. And that’s what the book is really all about.

C&S: A new addition to streets is self-driving cars. Do you think it’s the future of driving, or just a sideshow?

And was that something you even had to consider when you were

commissioner?

JSK: No, we don’t have autonomous vehicles on the streets yet. They’re certainly on the near-term horizon.

We’ve been working with NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials – which is a coalition of the largest cities in the United States and their transportation commissioners – to look at what this future with autonomous vehicles and transportation network companies, called TNCs, what that looks like. So while this might look like it’s a massive shift of the agencies’ agenda, a lot of the basics we’re handling at the Department of Transportation are going to become even more important. Like, how do you manage the curbside space? Which is some of the most contested land that cities have, as we look at implementing driverless cars. And taking a look at how do we price it? What if we no longer needed 50 to 85 percent of parking?

C&S: Pedestrian deaths reached modern lows in your time as commissioner.

How much is pedestrian safety a product of the streetscape versus a judicial or traffic enforcement measure?

JSK: Safety was at the heart of everything we did at the New York City Department of Transportation. It guided every single project. Right off the bat, we set a goal in our strategic plan to cut traffic fatalities 50 percent by 2030. And thanks to the reengineering that we’ve done on corridors and intersections – 113 corridors and 137 intersections – we actually moved forward with redesigning our streets so that they were safer for everyone and that went a long way to driving down fatalities to their lowest levels since the city kept records, which started 100 years ago.

C&S: A recent Post column by Steve Cuozzo criticized your redesign of Times Square, basically blaming you for tourists, costumed characters and desnudas. Was creating a better environment for tourists a consideration in forming that plan?

JSK: Everybody had tried to fix the transportation problem in Times Square for decades. People had tried different signal timing, different slip lanes, all sorts of different enhancements to try to address the chronic congestion and the safety problems there. And so we took a bigger look at the streetscape, and we realized there was an opportunity that was hidden in plain sight with the way Broadway actually functions on the Manhattan grid. You know, cutting it through on an angle. We realized that if we restored the grid, we could actually make traffic flow better, which is why we called it “Green Light for Midtown,” but we also looked at the other benefits that could come with that, accommodating the now 480,000 people that go through Times Square every day. Up until then, 90 percent of the real estate was for the cars despite the fact that the people

made up 90 percent of the traffic. And so it was a balance problem. We really looked at rebalancing that network. We found that by closing Broadway to motor vehicles between 42nd and 47th Streets and opening the former roadbed to people we saw an immediate success.

Injuries to motorists and pedestrians dropped 63 percent, pedestrian injuries dropped 35 percent, much fewer people walking in the roadbed, and it was a smash hit with New Yorkers: 74 percent agreed that Times Square improved dramatically. It’s now one of the top 10 retail locations on the planet. It’s now a true stage for people at the crossroads of the world, but more than just the street changed – people’s expectations for the street changed with them, as they found a new use for the space.

C&S: You got a lot of attention for the changes your office made for bikers and pedestrians. What are you most proud of doing for drivers?

JSK: Under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, we created the Sustainable Streets strategic plan, which very much drew from PlaNYC, which was this long-range sustainability plan, 137 different initiatives that affected all levels of government and all aspects of government operations. And safety was a big part of what we focused on. When you think about it, 30,000 people dying on the streets every year is a public health crisis, and yet it hasn’t received the same sort of attention that it needs.

So we really were focusing on changing the design of our streets from places to drive into places where people want to be. That’s not anti-car. We actually devoted 99 percent of our budget to State of Good Repair work on 6,000 miles of streets in New York City and the 788 bridges. So that’s a significant down payment on better infrastructure for drivers to get around. And again, these strategies are not anti-car; they’re really pro-choice in giving people options for getting around.

C&S: You built almost 400 miles of bike lanes in New York City, many of them marked by green paint on the asphalt. Have you ever been thanked by the green paint companies?

JSK: (Laughs) No. I should have thought about taking up stock in them though!

OLUGBENRO PHOTOGRAPHY

A Q&A WITH JANETTE SADIK-KHAN

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