NYS aid to Long Island schools will rise to $5.5B in 2026-27
State aid to Long Island schools is expected to total $5.5 billion for the 2026-27 school year. Credit: Howard Schnapp
State aid to Long Island schools is expected to total $5.5 billion for the 2026-27 school year, with most districts receiving at least a 2% increase in foundation aid, according to a Newsday analysis of state data.
The majority of the Island's districts will get more funding from the state for the next school year, according to aid runs published Wednesday, the day after Island voters approved 118 local budget proposals. Five failed and one district had not yet released results as of Wednesday.
The districts that are to see the highest jumps in state aid are Amagansett (35.58%), Montauk (23.62%), North Shore (23.54%) and Roslyn (20.22%). Five districts are expected to see a dip in funding: Eastport-South Manor (-2.06%), Rocky Point (-1.71%), Connetquot (-1.35%), South Country (-0.97%) and Roosevelt (-0.8%).
School officials said the latest aid figures did not come with any big surprises as most districts had anticipated receiving at least a 2% increase. However, they wished the news had arrived sooner.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
State aid to Long Island schools is expected to total $5.5 billion for the 2026-27 school year, with most districts receiving at least a 2% increase in foundation aid, according to a Newsday analysis.
Five districts will see a decrease in their overall state aid for next school year.
The state aid figures were released Wednesday, a day after school districts had to present their proposed budgets to voters.
The state budget was due April 1 but lawmakers did not begin voting on budget bills until Wednesday. School districts, meanwhile, had to present their budgets to voters on Tuesday, requiring them to guesstimate how much revenue they would get from the state.
“We finally know what our state aid package is the day after our communities voted on our budgets. It's insane,” said Tim Eagen, president of the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association. “Thankfully it landed where we had anticipated it would.”
Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, said the 2% increase is better than the 1% jump that Gov. Kathy Hochul had proposed in January but still isn’t enough.
Total school aid for Long Island districts will grow by $230 million, or 4.35%, but Vecchio said that funding increase includes an additional $54 million in universal prekindergarten grants, as well as reimbursements for building projects. Foundation aid, the single largest source of state financial support for public schools, is considered "new money," he said.
Foundation aid will rise to nearly $4 billion — a 3.51%, or $134 million, increase for 2026-27 from the current school year.
In Nassau and Suffolk counties, 80 out of 121 districts would receive the minimum 2% increase in foundation aid. (Sagaponack and Wainscott districts receive funding under a different formula; New Suffolk is non-instructional.)
But with inflation higher than 3%, Vecchio said, “2% doesn’t cut it.”
In a radio interview a week ago, Hochul said Island districts will be funded “at a proper level” and she believes many are “overtaxing because they already have reserves.”
A Newsday analysis last June found 19 Island districts had accumulated unrestricted cash surpluses above the state’s legal limit of 4% of their annual operating budgets.
“They have reserves to cover for their expenses,” Hochul told Jay Oliver on LI News Radio. “And I think that money should be returned to local residents who're paying too much in property taxes.”
Bus mandate pushed back
School officials on Wednesday welcomed the state budget legislation, which includes at least $10,000 per pupil for districts to create or expand prekindergarten programs for 4-year-olds and a delay of the state’s zero-emission school bus mandate by five years.
Eagen, superintendent of the Kings Park district, said the price to purchase a large zero-emission bus is around $475,000. A gas or diesel bus costs about $160,000.
Kings Park owns its fleet and bought four electric buses with the help of state and federal grants. But with federal dollars in doubt as the EPA revamps the Clean School Bus Program, Eagen said districts cannot absorb the difference.
“Once that $200,000 [EPA] grant goes away per bus, the economics of purchasing the bus doesn't work anymore,” he said. “So pushing it back five years is obviously something that superintendents are pretty excited about.”
Statewide, school aid is expected to total $39 billion, including more than $27 billion in foundation aid.
State aid makes up a third of the total revenue for Island schools, with the majority funded through local property taxes. This year, the Island's 124 districts had sought approval for $16.9 billion in spending for the 2026-27 school year, with $10 billion to be raised through property taxes.
School taxation on average makes up two-thirds of homeowners' tax bills and Long Island property taxes are among the highest in the country.
Nassau has the highest property taxes of any county in the nation, averaging $11,561 per household annually, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the nonprofit Tax Foundation in Washington. Suffolk is ranked No. 6, with families paying an average of $9,253 per year, Newsday has reported.
Andrea Vecchio, a regional taxpayer advocate from East Islip and no relation to Bob Vecchio, said the continued rise in school spending will ultimately drive out the Island’s middle class.
“Long Island is going to be not anything like what we experienced all these years in the future,” she said. “I guess there'll be very rich people and very poor people. But there won't be anybody in between.”
