Politics on the Hudson

State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, one of a dozen top college officials who attended a brainstorming session with President Obama last month, said in a statement today that she liked what she heard during his State of the Union address last night. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to control the cost of a college education, which the president said during his speech needs to be a priority for the country.

The president last night called on Congress to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July and extend the tuition tax credit.

“Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid.  We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money,” Obama said in his speech. “States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets.  And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down.”

Zimpher said the president’s focus during the meeting with college officials was “tackling the ‘iron triangle’ of higher education – cost, productivity, and access and completion.” What he called for last night is in line with the approaches SUNY is taking this year, she said.

This is from the statement she released:

“At SUNY, we stand ready to support the President’s call. We are working to develop cradle-to-career education networks throughout New York State and have invited K-12 officials to join us in ensuring that students who enter college are well prepared and can graduate on time, ending the need for remedial education. And as the President aims to double the number of work-study jobs in the next five years, SUNY is doing its part. We are bringing co-operative education to scale, helping students across the SUNY system obtain paid internships and hands-on work experience with local businesses in their field of study.

“Like President Obama, we also see that retaining our graduates is critical to the rejuvenation of our economy. SUNY’s partnerships with business and industry provide all students – whether they are born New Yorkers or have sought an American education from overseas – with an incentive to stay in the U.S., build a career here after graduation, and contribute to strengthening our economy.

“Above all, SUNY welcomes the President’s challenge to cut higher education costs. As we continue to identify opportunities for our 64 campuses and central office to share services and to become better stewards of student tuition dollars, we are committed to moving $100 million in administrative costs to instruction and student services over the next five years.”

SUNY is in the first of five years of annual tuition increases. Tuition is going up by $300 a year. Undergraduate tuition increased from $4,970 to $6,470 this year.

As co-chairman of a new mortgage investigation unit announced last night by President Barack Obama, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will work with federal agencies and state attorneys general to investigate parties that contributed to the global financial crisis by pooling and selling residential mortgage-backed securities. The Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses will be run through the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

This is Schneiderman’s statement on the appointment:

“I would like to thank President Obama for his leadership in the creation of a coordinated investigation that marshals state and federal resources to bring justice for the victims of the misconduct that caused the mortgage crisis.

“In coordination with our federal partners, our office will continue its steadfast commitment to holding those responsible for the economic crisis accountable, providing meaningful relief for homeowners commensurate with the scale of the misconduct, and getting our economy moving again.

“The American people deserve a robust and comprehensive investigation into the global financial meltdown to ensure nothing like it ever happens again, and today’s announcement is a major step in the right direction.”

Schneiderman, who is serving his first term as attorney general, will co-chair the unit along with top officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the IRS. Among them are Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami; and U.S. Attorney John Walsh, District of Colorado.

The new unit is charged with determining which institutions violated the law, compensating victims of the wrongdoing and helping provide relief to homeowners who are struggling as a result of the housing market collapse. It will work with state and federal law-enforcement agencies that are investigating and prosecuting financial fraud. The law-enforcement agencies are working with some of the largest banks in this country on a possible settlement over their misconduct.

Schneiderman played a role nationally on these issues by speaking out against a settlement with top banks in connection with the role they played in the mortgage meltdown. Other attorneys general joined him in opposing the deal, and it fell apart.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka praised Obama for setting up the unit and appointing Schneiderman:

“Recognizing the need for accountability the President powerfully insisted on a more humble Wall Street subject to a thorough investigation of the misconduct in the mortgage markets that wrecked our economy by the full range of federal and state civil and criminal authorities. We applaud the creation of a new mortgage crisis unit to be co-chaired by New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman.”

The New York Racing Association just issued a statement responding to an audit released by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli this morning that criticizes the group’s finances, the third audit since 2010 that finds serious fault with NYRA’s practices. DiNapoli said NYRA still hasn’t done a “top-to-bottom review of its financial operations” and reduced staff and consulting contracts.

The association’s statement said it took seriously the recommendations from the two audits in 2010.

“NYRA has and will continue to maintain financial discipline. To implement all of the recommendations made in the 2010 audit reports inside of a year would have required more money and resources than NYRA could prudently spend at that time, but we fully understand the importance of this process and remain committed to completing it,” the association said.

NYRA highlighted parts of DiNapoli’s audit that said the association made progress in implementing the 2010 recommendations, for example cuts in staffing, terminating its integrity counsel and hiring another for less money and other measures.

The comptroller’s audit said NYRA expects a $19.7 million loss from racing operations in 2012. NYRA said the $19.7 million figure is “misleading.” The group anticipates its net income will be about $19 million in 2012. Operating income from current racing operations, not including video lottery terminal proceeds for operations and expenditure, is projected to be $1.4 million. The 2012 budget wasn’t within the scope of the state audit and wasn’t discussed with NYRA management.

“The comptroller’s statement expresses concern regarding how NYRA will use the money from VLTs. As a reminder, the use of VLT proceeds is regulated by statute and primarily allocated to purse money and capital expenditures,” the statement said. “NYRA conducts a rigorous annual budget review and approval process and NYRA’s budget is reviewed by the Franchise Oversight Board. Furthermore, NYRA’s financial results and internal controls are routinely audited. NYRA is committed to the highest standards of corporate governance, integrity and management.”

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand penned a letter today asking for public support against what she describes as a “vicious, sustained attack against reproductive rights and equal access to healthcare for women of all ages.” The Democratic senator gives as an example what happened last week when three state senators pushed for a resolution that would designate this week as Reproductive Rights and Justice Week.

“As 3 of only 8 female Senators, they hoped this resolution would encourage public awareness of the challenges all women face when making personal, private health decisions,” Gillibrand wrote in the letter, which was sent out by state Senate Democrats just after the Assembly passed the resolution. “In what can only be characterized as outright censorship, the GOP Majority not only refused to accept the resolution but returned it to the Senators with more than 90 percent of the language crossed out. They should be ashamed!”

Gillibrand asked people to sign an online petition telling Senate Republicans to accept the original resolution, and to join her in helping Democrats win control of the chamber in this year’s elections. She accused tea party “extremists” of leading the attack on reproductive health care. In New York, Senate Republicans are using “heavy handed, draconian measures” and backing “an agenda completely out of touch with the mainstream,” she said.

The three senators she referred to are Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers; Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, and Toby Stavisky, D-Queens.

The Senate Republican majority modified the resolution because it didn’t conform with Senate rules as was written, according to Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County.

This afternoon, the Democrat-controlled Assembly adopted the Reproductive Rights and Justice Week resolution on a voice vote. A few weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said one of his priorities this year is to get the Reproductive Health Act adopted by the Legislature. The legislation, first proposed in 2007 by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, would modify the state’s abortion law, which dates from before Roe v. Wade, to ensure it remained legal if the event federal law was changed.

“I never thought this despicable cause would rear its ugly head in a state like New York, but Republicans in the State Senate have swung open the doors of our government and invited in the worst offenders,” Gillibrand wrote.

In a follow-up today to two critical post-bankruptcy state audits, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is knocking the New York Racing Association for not conducting a “top-to-bottom review of its financial operations” and reducing the cost of staff and consulting contracts. The comptroller said NYRA has to make significant changes to its operations.

“More than a year after my office’s last audit and real-time financial monitoring of NYRA, the organization still has much work to do to carry out the reforms we recommended,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “NYRA stands to squander significant revenue from the recently opened VLT (video-lottery terminal) franchise at Aqueduct. I will continue to closely monitor NYRA to ensure it reins in unnecessary spending and does not waste the new money coming in from the Aqueduct racino.”

Findings in the audit released today include:
—NYRA has projected a deficit of $11.5 million for the 2011 calendar year and a loss of $19.7 million from racing operations this year. The only way it could show a profit this year is through new VLT revenues.
—The association cut staffing by 3 percent from 2009 to 2010, but it did not follow DiNapoli’s recommendation to prepare a staffing analysis for each department that includes the optimal number of employees in each.
—The association terminated its contract with its integrity counsel and awarded a more cost-effective contract to a different counsel, but it didn’t exam the cost effectiveness of existing or prospective contracts for personal and miscellaneous services.
—NYRA needs to evaluate if it needs to continue transporting horses between NYRA tracks at no cost to horse owners to stay competitive.

The two initial audits were released in 2010. In the audit released in July 2010, DiNapoli’s office found that the Racing Association waited more than a year after coming out of bankruptcy before initiating operational reforms. The second audit, which was released in August 2010, advised that NYRA implement cost-saving measures, conduct periodic cash counts and other verification activities without prior notice, develop an automated system for inventory of concession operations and other measures.

DiNapoli said his office discovered last month that NYRA was keeping a larger takeout percentage from exotic wagering than it was allowed to, which led the state Racing and Wagering Board to take public action against the association. 

State Education Commissioner John King continues to say he is optimistic his agency and the New York State United Teachers union will reach an agreement on the new teacher-evaluation system within the 30-day time period laid out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week.

Based on a 2010 law, districts across the state are required to partially implement the system this year, and have it in place next year for everyone. But negotiations between school districts and unions have been difficult, in large part because teacher evaluations will be tied to student growth on tests. Most of the roughly 700 districts in the state haven’t agreed on a plan.

In presenting his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year last week, the governor gave the state Education Department and NYSUT 30 days to iron out their differences on the new system. The governor said he would propose his own system otherwise. NYSUT sued the state on the evaluation system. The union largely won at the state Supreme Court level, and the state has appealed.

“I’m certainly optimistic about the process going forward,” King told reporters after spending two hours before the Legislature’s joint budget committee today. “I appreciate the governor’s leadership on the issue. I think the governor has rightly drawn public attention to the urgency of having a fair, rigorous, transparent evaluation system in place, and the urgency of moving forward together, as teachers, principals, the state Education Department, school districts moving together to implement the promises we made in Race to the Top.”

U.S. education officials have cautioned New York that it could lose hundreds of millions dollars if it doesn’t successfully put a new system in place that ties teacher evaluations to student performance, one of the primary reasons its proposal was chosen for $700 million in federal Race to the Top education-reform grants.

King said school districts should not cease negotiations during the 30-day period.

“What I hope people don’t do is make the mistake of saying, ‘Well we’ll stop talking with our bargaining units until this is done,’” he said. “I think those conversations need to continue because the success of the evaluation system is not only about what we do at the state level but it’s about good local communication about what great teaching and great leadership look like.”

King did not respond to a question on whether the Education Department would drop its appeal except to say that oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 7.

“I think deadlines can often help to focus the mind,” he said.

 

State Education Commissioner John said he welcomes Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s leadership on teacher and principal evaluations and hopes it will help spur negotiations. Cuomo recommended imposing deadlines for school districts and unions to reach agreements, or face losing state funding.

A 2010 state law required that the growth in student performance be a factor in the evaluations of teachers and principals. The law helped New York secure nearly $700 in federal Race to the Top funding. A number of aspects of the evaluation system is subject to collective bargaining on the local level, which has led to delays in reaching agreements, and impasses in some districts.

This is King’s statement:

“The Governor is right to be frustrated. So far, there hasn’t been much progress. Earlier this month, I suspended School Improvement Grants because participating districts had failed to meet the deadline for acceptable agreements on evaluations. Now, the Governor has given SED and New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) 30 days to resolve this issue definitively. We should use those 30 days to have a healthy public debate on evaluations. We’re ready to sit down and start talking.

“There’s more than a billion dollars at risk. We cannot fail to meet the commitments New York State made in Race to the Top. More importantly, we cannot fail the students who are counting on us to deliver the education they need to succeed in college and careers.”

The U.S. Department of Education has put the state on notice last week that it could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in Race to the Top money if it doesn’t speed up implementation of the evaluation system.

Cuomo called on the state Education Department and New York State United Teachers to resolve a lawsuit that is on appeal. NYSUT sued the state over parts of the evaluation system. A state Supreme Court judge largely agreed with NYSUT last fall. The Education Department is appealing the decision.

 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal for a new pension tier, part of his budget proposal today, would reduce pension costs by one half compared to the current benefit. Public employers outside New York City would save $83 billion over the next three decades, and New York City would save an estimated $30 billion over 30 years, according to the budget.

These are the changes he wants to implement:
—Increase employee contributions from 3 percent to 4 percent, 5 percent or 6 percent, depending on what the salary level is.
—Increase the retirement age from 62 to 65 and bar early retirements.
—Create a defined-contribution option in the new tier, similar to a 401k, which would be voluntary for new employees. The minimum contribution from the employer would be 4 percent of salary when it is matched by the employee, and employers could match up to 3 percent more of the employee’s contribution.
—Set up a system in which employee contributions to the pension would increase or decrease, within limits, based on economic conditions.
—Decrease the pension multiplier from 2 percent to 1.67 percent for each year of service, which would mean a 30-year employee would receive a pension at 50 percent of final average salary, rather than 60 percent.
—Prohibit overtime and other payments from being used to calculate final average salary.

The governor said he wants to set aside funding for labor contracts that are unsettled until April 1, but not after that.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education budget proposal includes a 4.1 percent hike in education spending, to a total of $20.3 billion, which the governor and lawmakers agreed to in last year’s budget.

But the budget recommends an ultimatum for school districts and teachers unions. Future aid increases, which will be tied to the growth in personal income, will not be handed over unless new teacher-evaluation systems are in place by Jan. 17, 2013.

Cuomo will give a budget address at 2 p.m. today.

Cuomo has called the existing law that requires districts to put teacher- and principal-evaluation systems in place a failure. Elements of the system are subject to collective bargaining, and negotiations in many of the state’s roughly 700 school districts have not reached agreements or are at an impasse.

Of the $805 million in new funds, $250 million would be set aside for an expansion of competitive grants for school districts based on performance and efficiency. Another $265 million would support increased expenses for expense-based aid programs, such as transportation and school construction, and $290 million would be handed out for basic classroom funding.

The governor proposes that 76 percent of the increase go to high-need school districts, and they will get 69 percent of total school aid. (more…)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will reveal in his budget address tomorrow whether he plans to tie a planned 4 percent increase in state education aid to implementation of a new teacher-evaluation system.

Published reports today based on anonymous sources said that is what Cuomo is prepared to do. The governor would not confirm the reports, but he said after a Martin Luther King Day ceremony in Albany that it is one of the issues under consideration. He presents his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which starts April 1.

New York State United Teachers wants to ensure programs for students and funding for schools are protected, especially since the state already has a teacher-evaluation law, spokesman Carl Korn said.

“New York’s teacher-evaluation law is the right law. It sets out a framework for a comprehensive, fair and rigorous evaluation system. It doesn’t make sense to harm programs that benefit students when New York already has a model law to evaluate teachers and principals and everyone’s working hard at implementing it,” he said.

The governor and state Education Commissioner John King have voiced their frustration with the slow pace of implementing a new teacher-evaluation system that factors in student growth. King recently announced he was pulling about $105 million in federal School Improvement Grants for 10 school districts that didn’t meet the Dec. 31 deadline for documenting they have an agreement on a new teacher-evaluation system. Districts can appeal.

Korn said NYSUT shares the governor’s frustrations, “but the answer is not to start from scratch or to tie education funding to the teacher-principal evaluation process but to work collaboratively with the Legislature and governor to try to move the process along. That’s what we’re prepared to do.”

To increase its chances of getting Race to the Top money, New York adopted a 2010 law requiring new teacher-evaluation and student-data systems and an expansion of charter schools. A one-year report card from the U.S. Department of Education on New York’s Race to the Top money cited the lack of progress on implementation of the teacher- and principal-evaluation system, among other problems. New York has been put on a “watch list” because of the progress report, which was released last week.

The governor got involved with teacher evaluations law year, when he advised the state Board of Regents it should make the regulations more rigorous and speed up the process for implementing the new system. He recommended removing regulations that prohibit the same measure of student growth on state tests from being used for an additional 20 percent of the evaluation, for a total of 40 percent.

NYSUT sued the Education Department on certain aspects of the teacher-evaluation system, and a state court largely agreed with the union. As a result, a number of the regulations were deemed invalid. The case is on appeal. “Implementation has been a challenge because of the state Education Department’s failure to put a working data system in place, $1.3 in education cuts and the appeal of the lawsuit,” Korn said.

Below is the text of the letter from the governor last year: (more…)