This week’s announcement that the New York Archdiocese is closing 27 schools was a bitter one to have to make. While population shifts and similar factors played a role, much of the reason was financial — and a part of that pressure could be alleviated if our state’s elected leaders finally make the back payments owed to Catholic schools.
Some 99 percent of Catholic-school seniors in the Archdiocese graduate, and 96 percent of our grads go on to higher education. And we’re now implementing Pathways to Excellence, a comprehensive strategic plan designed to ensure the Catholic schools remain academically excellent and continue to be available and affordable to the thousands of children we serve.
Yet our representatives in Albany directly contribute to rising tuition in our schools. Here’s how:
* In the last few years, lawmakers and state officials have failed to reimburse religious and independent schools for costs they incur in complying with state mandates and participating in state programs — seemingly in direct violation to the 37-year-old Mandated Services Reimbursement statute.
By our calculations, Albany owes all religious and independent schools in the state about $260 million in back payments for costs that the state imposed on those schools — with some $43 million owed to Catholic schools in the Archdiocese. Schools have no choice but to make up the shortfall by raising tuition — some $500 more a student.
* Adding insult to injury, state lawmakers bailed out the MTA by imposing a payroll tax on employers in the MTA region, including schools. To avoid having school districts transfer this added cost to property-tax payers, lawmakers reimbursed public schools for that expense — but not religious and independent schools.
The cost to religious and independent schools is about $7.5 million — which translates to another tuition increase for our Catholic schools.
* State lawmakers support the growth of charter schools without providing commensurate support to the families who enroll their children in religious and independent schools — which provide another excellent school-choice option.
It is painfully clear that children in failing public schools desperately need alternatives. But when families move their children from religious and independent schools to a “tuition-free” charter school, the cost to taxpayers goes from near zero to more than $14,000 a student.
Such favoritism for just one school-choice option actually compounds the taxpayers’ financial burden.
It’s time for our legislators to really question why so many Catholic schools are forced to close and why the solvency of others is threatened.
Albany, what are you waiting for? Blaming the economy is not an answer — it’s an excuse.
Indeed, hard times mean that fewer families can afford the dual burden of taxes for the public schools and tuition for a religious or independent school for their children. This needlessly raises the cost to taxpayers by thousands of dollars a child — thus exacerbating the state and local fiscal crises.
It would be far less expensive for the state to provide parents with the financial assistance they need to choose and remain in religious and independent schools.
It is our hope that Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature will live up to their mandated financial obligations to our schools and provide families, especially poorer families, with the means to choose any school for their children.
Defaulting on unpaid bills to our Catholic schools and implementing prejudicial policies that increase the taxpayers’ financial obligations for schools is indefensible. We recognize that times are tough, but this much is clear — if our elected officials don’t help our schools, times will only get tougher.
Timothy McNiff is superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of New York.