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BOROUGH PRESIDENT FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF FISCAL EQUITY FOR CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Photograph by Kathryn Kirk
	In photo: New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Councilman Bill Perkins, Councilman Robert Jackson and CFE Executive Director Michael Rebell

Borough President Marty Markowitz joined New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and his fellow borough presidents today in announcing the City’s filing of a friend of the court brief in support of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s (CFE) appeal to the State’s highest court to change the way the State funds its schools.

“It is finally time for the State to stop treating the 1.1 million New York City public school students differently from students in Troy, Garrison or Saratoga Springs,” Borough President Markowitz said. “This is an issue about basic fairness that has to be resolved now because our children have suffered for far too long. I am proud to join this fight because we are fighting for the future of New York City.”

The brief is in support of CFE’s appeal filed on January 31, 2003, to the Court of Appeals in Albany. This appeal is the final step in the New York courts in the landmark school-funding lawsuit, CFE v. State of New York. CFE first brought suit against New York State in 1993. New York City has 38% of the State’s students, yet receives only 35% of the State funding.

In January 2001, the courts ruled in a historic decision by Justice Leland DeGrasse that the current school funding formula is “inequitable and unconstitutional.” The trial court held that the current state system of funding schools violated the State Constitution. Then, in a stunning reversal in June 2002, the intermediate appeals court overruled the trail court’s decision, holding that only an 8th grade level education will satisfy constitutional requirements.

A decision is expected before the end of the Court’s current term in June 2003.