CFE Litigation

The Court of Appeals, the state's top court, recently issued an opinion closing out (at least for now) the lawsuit filed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity over a decade ago. The suit alleged disparities in how public schools were funded, resulting in inequitably underfunded schools in inner cities. Specifically the suit was focused on NYC, but related litigation was filed concerning Rochester. This appeal concerns the NYC litigation, and found that an additional $1.9 billion would be required to provide a "sound basic education", which is the benchmark required by the law.

It's unfortunate that this has been cast as an upstate/downstate issue as if money is being taken from one to provide for the other. The result should benefit all schools in rural and urban areas where the existing tax base isn't sufficient to support top flight education.