ALBANY — When Gov. David A. Paterson proposed this week cutting more than $1 billion in school aid to help address the state’s financial crisis, the critics quickly pounced. Mr. Paterson’s cuts would cripple New York’s schools, they charged, hurt children and undermine the state’s economic recovery.
“The governor’s proposal in essence pries open our schoolhouse doors and extracts every dollar from children’s education that Albany can put its hands on,” Billy Easton, the executive director for the Alliance for Quality Education, said in one widely quoted statement.
But looked at more closely, Mr. Paterson’s cuts — likely to be the most bitterly fought-over, most fiercely resisted portion of his budget plan — may not be quite as dire as some education advocates make them appear.
The discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is clearest when it comes to the state’s wealthier and more politically connected school districts, especially on Long Island and in Westchester County, where suburban lawmakers have long flexed their muscle to ensure that their districts receive a disproportionate share of state money. Wealthy districts have also piled up significant cash reserves in so-called undesignated accounts, to be used for emergencies.