Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.
New York City schools stand to lose nearly $350 million under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed update to the state’s school funding formula, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said Wednesday at a budget hearing in Albany.
“There is no question that the Foundation Aid formula needs a revamp,” Aviles-Ramos said. “But the governor’s proposed changes to the formula would actually result in nearly $350 million fewer dollars to New York City public schools than we’d be entitled to under the current formula, disproportionately impacting our system compared to many other districts.”
In her executive budget earlier this month, Hochul proposed several changes to the states’ school funding formula, which if enacted would result in New York City losing out on potential funding. The governor’s proposed spending plan marked the start of budget negotiations with lawmakers, with a finalized budget due by the start of the next fiscal year, which begins in April.
First developed in 2007, the Foundation Aid formula, in some cases, relies on decades-old data to calculate student need in determining how much money to send school districts.
Though advocates and policymakers agree the formula is in dire need of updates, some remain divided over what changes the state should make.
For one change, Hochul called for replacing the 2000 Census poverty rate with the most recent Census Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. She also proposed the formula stop using federal free- and reduced-price lunch eligibility as a basis for measuring student need, instead switching to broader “economically disadvantaged” student counts.
Though the latter of these changes could benefit the city, the former would result in a sizable hit to funding for local schools.
In her testimony, Aviles-Ramos urged lawmakers to update how the formula accounts for differing costs across regions and add a weight for students in temporary housing, among other potential changes that could offset the loss of potential funding for New York City’s schools.
“We need that additional money,” she said. “And most importantly, we cannot sustain a cut.”
NYC asks for more money to implement school cellphone ban
Aviles-Ramos also called on lawmakers to push for additional funding to support a proposed statewide school cellphone ban.
Implementation costs were among the sticking points that held up a citywide ban anticipated earlier this school year, and the chancellor argued that the $13.5 million Hochul earmarked in her proposed ban was insufficient to support schools across the state. Aviles-Ramos did not specify how much city schools might need.
Currently, schools across the five boroughs can make their own determinations over whether and how to restrict student cellphone use. Some schools opt to collect phones each morning, while others use cubbies or locking pouches to store devices throughout the school day.
On Wednesday, Aviles-Ramos told lawmakers that the last of these options was the most effective — allowing students to retain their devices throughout the day with options to access them if an emergency situation occurs. But she added that purchasing those pouches can be expensive for schools.
Yondr, one company that develops the locking pouches, previously told Chalkbeat that the pouches (along with additional equipment, training, and support) cost about $30 per student, though company officials noted they offered “volume discounts.”
“I didn’t have that kind of money,” Aviles-Ramos said of her time as a school principal. Instead, the schools chancellor said her school collected cellphones each day from roughly 400 students. “So when I had an emergency and I needed to evacuate, I needed to get 400 cellphones back into the hands of high school students. That was very, very challenging.”
Aviles-Ramos added schools that have already implemented cellphone bans should benefit from the state funding.
“Roughly 800 of our schools have already signed up to do this work,” she said. “What we don’t want to tell them is, ‘Continue to self-fund while we pay for other schools to get on the bus,’ particularly if the Foundation Aid formula does not adjust and there’s going to be a decrease in the funding that they get.”
State lawmakers voice concerns over compliance with class size law, Trump administration
During the hearing, state lawmakers also voiced concerns over a range of issues impacting the city’s public school system, including its efforts to comply with a state law mandating smaller class sizes and the safety of immigrant communities amid President Donald Trump’s escalating deportation efforts.
State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s New York City education committee, argued the city has not taken sufficient steps to shrink class sizes in the city. Though the city has thus far remained in compliance with the law without requiring dramatic measures, the first significant test comes in September when 60% of classrooms across the city must fall below the caps.
“The reality is that the department has done virtually nothing to achieve that,” Liu said.
Aviles-Ramos and other city officials pushed back on Liu’s statement, arguing that the city has given schools a chance to propose their own plans for meeting the class size mandate. The Education Department offered new funding to campuses that submitted concrete plans last month to shrink classes.
“That is incredibly important, Senator, because we know that when we give principals the autonomy to make the program shifts and the space shifts necessary to comply, it’s better than us swooping in and doing those mandates,” she said.
Several lawmakers also expressed concerns over the safety of immigrant students in New York City, as the Trump administration has rolled back long-standing protections that treated schools and child care centers as “sensitive locations” largely shielded from immigration enforcement.
Aviles-Ramos told lawmakers that school attendance after Trump’s inauguration was between 84-89%, compared to 89-92% for the same week in 2024 — a downward trend that may have been spurred in part by fears from immigrant families. She added that city policy prevents law enforcement from entering school buildings without a warrant, and that the Education Department had hosted training sessions for school officials and families.
“What if they have a judicial warrant?” asked Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes, who added that constituents in her south Brooklyn district have expressed deep concerns over the possibility of federal immigration agents entering the community.
“Then, unfortunately, they are permitted to enter,” Aviles-Ramos said.
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.
