Also quoted: "The local government advocates, to their credit, correctly point to the continued need for mandate relief, though their letter to Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan omits the 800-pound gorillas: the Triborough amendment and pension costs."
As many New York State school districts are just catching up to the state aid amounts they received in 2009 because of GAP and have burned through millions of dollars of fund balance and debt reserve funds to balance budgets (and where the coffers are near bear in many districts), it will be interesting to see how school districts like Lancaster manage to weather another storm if nothing is done to reign in automatic 3+% employee wage step increases and skyrocketing benefit and pension costs - at taxpayer expense.
Nice post, gorga. Hopefully the public will read the information published in the link provided to get an understanding of the consequences of having a zero sum budget increase fostered on the district.