[UPDATED] Agreement near on funding school modernization

UPDATE
(Thursday, May 31): The bill passed the Assembly yesterday and now
goes to the governor for his signature.

BY
TIM LOUIS MACALUSO and CHRISTINE CARRIE FIEN

Mayor
Tom Richards, city schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas, and
Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski are close to
resolving the funding issue that nearly stalled the district’s
schools modernization program.

The
New York State Senate passed
a bill earlier this month establishing that debt payments for the
Rochester’s school facilities modernization program won’t add to
the amount the City of Rochester must give the school district every
year, called the Maintenance of Effort.

The
Assembly could pass
its bill as early as today, Richards says.

“We
agreed: the union, the city, and the school district on a bill that
was acceptable,” Richards says.

Work
on the massive $325 million first phase of the massive project to
remake the city’s schools almost stalled last year over a conflict
over the MOE law. The school district has no authority to borrow
money for the project and depends on the city to borrow on its
behalf.

But
the New York State Education Department could not assure the city
that borrowing on behalf of the district would not increase the $119
million the city provides to the district in annual funding through
the MOE.

Competing
Senate and Assembly bills never made out of the State Legislature.
Neither the city, nor the school district and the New York State
United Teachers union were willing agree to the other’s version of
the bill out of concerns about the MOE.

The
school district and the teachers unions said that the city’s
version in the Assembly created a loophole for the city to lower the
amount of funding it provides to the district.

“What
is now being voted on is not the same legislation,” says RTA
President Urbanski.

The
bill is only applicable to the first phase of the project.

This article appears in A cultural gem in a high-tech hub.