Albany

It's the political equivalent of Newton's third law of motion: Every executive budget proposal creates an equal and opposite push-back from advocates.

The Alliance for Quality Education, which advocates for increased school spending, officially kicked off push-back season Wednesday morning, a day after Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year. His plan included a $608 million increase in formula-based aid to school districts — a sum that AQE and others see as woefully inadequate to the needs of high-needs districts around the state.

Backed by Capital Region lawmakers including Assembly members Patricia Fahy, John McDonald and Phil Steck, plus state senators Cecilia Tkaczyk and Neil Breslin — all Democrats — AQE Executive Director Billy Easton called the governor's proposal "simply devastating."

He said Cuomo's proposed $100 million downpayment on statewide prekindergarten education was "clearly not adequate to be a universal pre-K program, and should not be an excuse for blocking New York City from paying its own way" through a tax increase on the city's wealthiest residents, as proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Fahy said that the new stream of money for pre-K — Cuomo plans to devote $1.5 billion to that effort over the next five years — could actually disadvantage K-12 education in the struggle for resources.

"The last thing we want to do is pit pre-K advocates against K-12 advocates," Fahy said. " ... We cannot talk about $2 billion in tax cuts in this state while we're knocking the knees out from under education, and you can't talk about raising standards without providing some funds to do so."

There were even harsher words for Cuomo from Schenectady City School District Superintendent Larry Spring, who has filed a civil rights complaint against the governor, the state Education Department and the Legislature for what he alleges is discrimination in the state's application of the school aid formula.

"(Cuomo's) values in action show that he is very willing to put poor black and Latino students on the back burner and encourage a system that persists in second-class education for those students," Spring said.

Guilderland Superintendent Marie Wiles said her district has done all it can to find ways to reduce costs and redirect funding to instruction. "Frankly, we've done everything the governor has asked, and more," she said.

Wiles said the district would next week be forced to examine "what we will cut this time that will make Guilderland less of a school district that it is this year, and than it was last year. So what will it be the following year?"

Later, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions announced it would launch grassroots efforts to knock out what it described as giveaways to the wealthy in the executive budget proposal.

"Right now, we cannot afford to spend a $2 billion surplus on tax cuts for the wealthiest New Yorkers," said Ron Deutsch of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness.

He singled out proposed changes to the estate tax and reduced business taxes as "a misguided effort" in a state with what advocates says is the nation's most profound income inequality.

"Our state can't afford a billion dollars a year in new tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and Wall Street," he added, indicating that the groups backing the effort "have proven over the last several years that people power can beat money power when it comes to big tax and budget issues."

Cuomo's spokesman Rich Azzopardi said the governor "works for the people of the state, not special interests — and as this week's Siena poll showed, there is overwhelming broad-based support for the Governor's agenda with more than 65 percent of New Yorkers supporting the individual tax items proposed in this budget."

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