Letter to Robert Mujica, Budget Director NYS Division of the Budget - Stefanik Joins Assemblyman Smullen and Senator Tedisco in Effort Urging New York State to Provide Funding for Indian Lake and Long Lake Central School Districts

Letter

Dear Director Mujica,

We are writing to request your support in resolving an issue impacting two school districts in the
North Country. While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected students and teachers in every
school across New York State, Indian Lake Central School District and Long Lake Central
School District have not received any supplemental federal funding and remain in dire need of
support as they prepare for the upcoming school year.

New York State has received over $14 billion in supplemental federal funding through the
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund for K-12 school districts to
address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and support schools with the added costs of
safely reopening and making up for lost instructional time. While 90 percent of the supplemental
funding was required by law to be allocated to school districts based on their Title I-A
allocations, much of the remaining 10 percent was discretionary funding for New York State to
allocate based the state's determination of emergency needs. Even with the state-level
reservations required in the most recent ESSER allocation, New York State was provided the
flexibility to direct over $728 million from the multiple rounds of ESSER funding towards
addressing the unmet needs of students and school districts.

As you know, very small school districts are not included in the annual Title I-A allocations if
they lack a minimum number of eligible children. Many states recognized this issue and used a
portion of their ESSER discretionary funds to ensure all small rural school districts receive some
funding to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 as they continue to serve the students and families
in their communities. Yet to date, these two school districts in the North Country have not
received any supplemental federal funding. Based on projections generated from the FY2020
Title I-A allocations used to distribute most of the supplemental federal funding to school
districts, had these two school districts not been excluded due to their size, they would have
received approximately the following amounts in supplemental funding:

* Indian Lake CSD: $98,400
* Long Lake CSD: $68,900

To equip all students across the state, regardless of the size of the school they attend, with the
necessary support to overcome the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we request you direct
available funds to provide immediate assistance to Indian Lake Central School District and Long
Lake Central School District. A possible source of funding is the $10 million in Bullet Aid that
your office is directly involved in allocating to school districts, public libraries, and non-profit
institutions. Additionally, New York State could use funds from the $12.75 billion in federal aid
recently provided through the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund to cover the costs of
eligible expenses incurred by these two school districts.

We look forward to working with you to secure funding for these two North Country school
districts and ensure all children have the resources and opportunity to receive an excellent
education as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source