A report produced by Citizen Action of New York indicates that spending cuts included in the governor’s budget proposal would increase racial and ethnic disparities in New York.

The report, called Race Matters Impact of the 2010-2011 Executive Budget Proposals, seeks to show how cuts to state programs would fall disproportionately on ethnic and racial minorities. It also proposes possible solutions to fill the budget gap.

Bob Cohen, policy director for the Public Policy and Education Fund, and an author of the report, said although all the cuts mentioned in the report have an impact on ethnic and racial inequalities, the most drastic effects would be felt in the area of schools and education.

The Public Policy and Education Fund of New York is the research and public education affiliate of Citizen Action of New York.

The report says a proposed $1.4 billion school aid cut would affect students of color and those who have limited English proficiency disproportionately because they tend to live in school districts that are more dependant on state aid. A $1.4 billion cut was approved by Senate resolution on March 22, while the Assembly would restore $600 million in school aid under its budget resolution, adopted on March 24.

Cohen, talking about the Assembly and Senate budget resolutions, said the Assembly has a slightly lesser impact on racial and ethnic disparity, but both resolutions still fall short of what could be done to lessen the impact of drastic cuts on poor communities.

Marina Marcou-O’Malley, a policy analyst for the Alliance for Quality Education and co-author of the report, talked at a press conference about the cuts being proposed to school spending.

“These proposed cuts are in high-needs districts. This means that school districts that need the most help in ensuring that every student has access to their constitutionally granted right to a sound, basic education and the opportunity to learn will lose the most programs, the most access,” said O’Malley.

She said the cut per classroom would be $11,677 statewide compared to a cut of around $2,000 to $4,000 per classroom for wealthier school districts where the proportion of students of color is generally much lower. On top of this, said O’Malley, 64 percent of districts expect they will be increase property taxes.

Paul Webster, community outreach coordinator for New York State United Teachers union, said the Race Matters report is important because “it really depicts a stark future for communities of color.”

Webster said cuts to high-needs districts in education would be particularly harmful because of the loss of teaching staff. He cited Buffalo as an example because the group predicts the city’s school district will lose 1,100 teachers and educators — one-third of its professional force.

He also said Albany would lose 113 teachers and educators, Yonkers up to 1,000, Syracuse 211, and Brentwood in Suffolk County, which has the largest population of Hispanic students outside of New York City of around 15,000 students, would lose 525.

“These cuts are not just numbers on a piece of paper, this is the future of kids in our state that we’re talking about,” said Citizen Action Executive Director Karen Scharff.

There is also a proposal in the Executive Budget to cut state funding for after-school programs from $28 million to $17 million. The report says after-school programs have a particularly strong impact on raising achievement among low-income children and children of color.

Anne Pope, northeast regional director for the NAACP, speaks at the release of the Race Matters report from Citizen Action New York. The report examines how Executive Budget proposals could affect ethnic and racial disparities. Photo by Andrew Beam, The Legislative Gazette.

“President Obama has stated that education is the key to success. What the heck are we doing? Are we providing success for our children or are we going to continue to put these budget cuts and expect them to be successful for us?” asked Analusette Shaello-Johnson, municipal youth bureau director for the city of Binghamton.

The report also points to cuts in higher education and how they might cause ethnic and racial disparity.

For SUNY schools, the Executive Budget proposes a $95 million cut; for CUNY $48 million; and a reduction of base aid to SUNY and CUNY community colleges of $285 per full-time equivalent student, the report says.

According to the report, SUNY and CUNY combined educate roughly three-fifths of all college students of color in the state. As of the fall of 2008, 28.3 percent of CUNY students were Hispanic, 28.2 percent were African-American and 17 percent were Asian-Pacific American.

The report shows that the Professional Staff Congress, which represents CUNY professors, found that 45 percent of CUNY community college students come from households with annual incomes of less than $20,000.

The Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (S.6607-a/A.9707-a) is also criticized in the report. One part of the bill would allow tuition increases to be set independently by SUNY and CUNY boards, instead of by the Legislature.

The report says that, even with a proposed cap on tuition hikes, there could still be up to a 10 percent increase if enacted. The potential increase, combined with no commitment to increase or maintain aid from the state, could have the effect of “squeezing out the low-income students and students of color who attend these institutions,” according to the report.

The report also says that the proposed tuition cap — 2.5 times the rolling average of the higher education price index, a measure of inflation rate in U.S. higher education — does not apply to differential tuition for specific academic programs. The report finds that the lack of a cap on differential tuition could push poorer students out of certain majors that cost more to offer, such as science or medicine.

The Student Assembly of the State University of New York, which has one seat on the SUNY Board of Trustees, has asked for a cap on differential tuition and a decrease to the tuition-increase cap.

“Differential tuition would exacerbate existing and persistent inequalities of race, gender and class. It was to challenge those inequalities that many of us entered into education in the first place,” the report says, quoting budget testimony given by Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress.

Phillip H. Smith, president of United University Professions, said the Senate resolution on the budget asks for an additional $15.4 million in cuts to “universitywide programs” that aren’t specified. The Executive Budget also proposes a 12 percent cut to opportunity programs such as SEEK/CD (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge/ College Discovery), EOP (Educational Opportunity Program) and HEOP (Higher Education Opportunity Program).

“In the past, EOP and HEOP are two premier opportunity programs especially for people of color that have been cut to the bone. Just this past year over 17,000 students were turned away,” said Smith.

Among health care measures, the report finds a “mixed bag” of proposals that could both positively and negatively affect communities of color. The Assembly’s budget resolutions reject $126.3 million of the governor’s proposed health care spending reductions, while the Senate accepted the governor’s $1.9 billion cut.

The report approves of the Executive Budget proposal to regulate health insurance rate increases. The budget would require insurers to spend 85 percent of premium dollars on health care that it says would help hold down rates.

According to the report, African-American and Hispanic workers are less likely to have employer-sponsored insurance. Regulating health insurance rates, says the report, would help those groups by easing the burden on those who need to buy into Healthy New York, small business insurance coverage or the direct-pay market.

Cohen said that there is a good chance this year there will be a re-regulation of health insurance rates by the Legislature.

The report is also critical of the plan to reduce charity care funding by $70 million. The program is directed at assisting uninsured, disproportionately low-income people and people of color in hospitals. The report suggests restoring the cut and instituting greater accountability to make sure hospitals use the money appropriately to serve the uninsured.

Among other health care measures, the report also disapproves of a $507,600 proposed cut to school-based health centers, centers located on-site that collectively serve more than 200,000 underserved youth in rural, urban and suburban schools throughout the state.

The report also offers alternatives to Executive Budget proposals. It recommends reducing the stock transfer tax rebate by 20 percent. Instead of stock brokers receiving a full rebate on individual stocks transferred, the state would only rebate 80 percent back to brokers. New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness have said this could raise $3.2 billion annually in state revenues.

There is also a proposal for a one-time tax on bankers’ cash bonuses over $50,000, with the report saying the tax could raise $6 billion to $10 billion, discourage the rewarding of short-term risk-taking and “encourage firms to maintain adequate capital reserves by tying employees’ fates to those of shareholders.”

Anne Pope, northeast regional director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said “this report points to the fact that our job is not over, in fact our job is going to be a little harder.”

“The report highlights that [while] the nation and state are led by people of color, the overall condition of our communities remains extraordinarily difficult and many find themselves in crisis,” continued Pope.

“Unfortunately, we’re in a political dynamic where people think government programs are bad,” said Cohen.

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