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Massena Central School officials say district will receive much less state aid than what governor's budget reports

Posted 1/24/13

MASSENA – The Massena Central School will see a $637,145 foundation aid for the 2013-14 school year, less than what the governor’s budget message reported, school district officials say. That …

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Massena Central School officials say district will receive much less state aid than what governor's budget reports

Posted

MASSENA – The Massena Central School will see a $637,145 foundation aid for the 2013-14 school year, less than what the governor’s budget message reported, school district officials say.

That represents a 3.10 percent increase in unrestricted funds or a 4.09 percent increase in foundation aid over last year, according to an analysis from the school district office.

Those numbers differ from a $1,005,060 or 4.89 percent increase reported in the governor’s budget.

The difference, explains Massena Superintendent of Schools Roger B. Clough II, is the way the numbers are reported.

“It’s true the district will receive more than $1,000,000 dollars from the state, but what is deceiving is that more than $350,000 of that is reimbursement for expenses we paid last year,” he said.

Clough explains that districts receive two types of aid. One reimburses the district for previous year’s expenses such as BOCES costs, extraordinary special education costs and transportation costs. The second type of aid is the aid for the coming year.

Lumping the two types of aid together makes any increase look bigger than it actually is, Clough said.

“Don’t get me wrong; we’re pleased for any increase in this economic climate,” he said.

“We just don’t want people thinking we received more than we did or that this solves our district’s budget concerns. At the end of the day, we still have an approximate $5.5 million gap between the governor’s promised revenues and our projected expenses.”