As the New York State Board of Regents met in Albany Monday, one line on the schedule was fairly routine for a September convening: a look ahead at state aid.

This year though, Bob Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, told Spectrum News 1 the conversation is a bit more crowded thanks to the Rockefeller Institute’s Foudnation Aid study.

“Ordinarily, they’ve kind of got the subject to themselves,” he said. “It creates some interesting complications for the education department as far as how they will proceed,” he said.

Traditionally, fall is when both the Department of Education and the governor separately begin developing their proposals for state aid.

The Board of Regents votes on their aid proposal on Dec. 9, while the governor releases her state budget in January. The Rockefeller Institute, commissioned to study the state’s badly outdated Foundation Aid formula, is due to present their report on Dec. 1. The study is expected to play a role in next year’s budget, but the timeline is compressed in terms of working recommendations into either proposal.

The Board of Regents Monday presented their own list of priorities for that updated formula, and Lowry says one of the most important ones is simple: treat similar districts similarly.

“We shouldn’t have sharp differences in aid when the differences in characteristics are minor,” he said. “One area where that happens is the regional cost index, that’s something that we and others have said we ought to take time to reconsider and see if there is a better way to apply a regional cost index.”

Also listed was a need for flexibility when it comes to changing conditions, and research-backed explanations for individual elements of the formula.

Lowry stressed, though, that the state must take into account both changes in current conditions as well as allow for the stability needed for districts to budget out a few years in advance.

“One way to try to address both of those ideas is instead of using a one year of data, use a rolling three-year average,” he said.

Then, of course, there is the issue that played a significant roll in prompting the study, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to end "Save Harmless," or "Hold Harmless," which ensures districts don’t receive less aid than the previous year if their population drops.

Hochul has been steadfast in her concern that the state is funding “empty seats” but backed off removing the "Save Harmless" bucket in favor of the study during budget negotiations after legislative leaders rejected the proposal. 

Lowry insisted that while outdated figures must be updated, the solution can’t take into account only changes in population. Instead, he said it must also recognize the evolving nature of what is expected of a school district.

“The biggest area would be in mental health services, but it can be other things, health care, child care, after school care, in some cases food assistance,” he said.

The board emphasized that what the study will provide are recommendations to the governor and the legislature, not mandates. The state aid proposal will still go through the normal budget process and it is up to the governor and the Legislature to implement the results as they see fit.