By Hank Russell
New York State Assemblyman Steve Stern (D-Dix Hills) spoke at LIMBA (Long Island Metro Business Action) at the Candlelight Diner in Commack on February 28. He talked about what is happening in Albany and what he is doing to get more money for Long Island. He explained how the region is being shortchanged — from education to transportation to infrastructure.
The first topic was education funding and how Long Island schools get shortchanged. He said that, for Long Islanders, that is the top priority.
Stern called the Foundation Aid formula — which is used to determine which school district gets how much funding — “obscure” and “ridiculous.” He said his “phone was blowing up” every day because the school superintendents were calling to see if they will be getting the appropriate funding.
What makes the Foundation Aid archaic, Stern said, is that it doesn’t take into consideration students who need services for mental health issues, second-language learners and those with special needs. So, Stern brought the state education chair to the schools in his district to see “what’s inside the building and how, with the Foundation Aid formula, it doesn’t match up.”
As a result, Stern said, he was able to get a new baseline and the formula was adjusted “quickly.” Just when Long Island schools were getting their fair share, Governor Kathy Hochul announced revisions to the budget formula. “For much of Long Island schools, ‘nothing to see here, we’re going to slash their budgets,'” he said. “[The state] was going to slash their budgets… to some pretty devastating amounts. … A lot of school districts took it on the chin.”
Stern also addressed the issues of affordability and taxes. He said Hochul’s $1 billion Inflation Rebate is not a good idea. “Cutting everyone a check might be good from a policy perspective for a governor trying to get over a 38% approval rating,” he said. “To me, it’s not good policy. It’s a one-shot and it’s not sustainable.” However, he said, there will be a middle-class tax cut.
The topic of the opioid crisis was also broached at the meeting. He said the fentanyl crisis has been a major challenge, but now xylazine — also known as “tranq” — has become a bigger problem. According to Stern, there were 20 gun deaths in Suffolk, but 423 overdose deaths from opioids.
“We talk about gun safety at the top of our lungs,” he said. “But 20% of the overdoses were not even fentanyl. It’s the next phase, xylazine. You can die just looking at it, it’s that powerful.” He has been working with Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney to get bills passed in which anyone who deals drugs that cause someone’s death should be held legally responsible.
Some of the bills include getting help for users as opposed to jail. “You can’t just arrest your way out of the problem,” he said. “There has to be a component for treatment.”
The conversation transitioned into bail reform. Stern said he was one of the few assemblymembers to vote against it. “It was just a bad idea.” He is currently working with Tierney to make fentanyl sales a bail-eligible offense.
Initially, “we had way too many people … sitting in jail because they couldn’t afford to pay the $200 bail for a petty offense,” he explained. “We all agreed that the system shouldn’t work like this. … But the Democrats and Republicans said, “Let’s kill it all and bring it back.’ That’s not the right way to govern.”
He said the worst part of bail reform is that those with drug and mental health issues are not getting the help they need. “That’s dangerous and it doesn’t need to be,” he said. “We have a national model here in Suffolk and we’re not able to use it [because of bail reform].”
He also bemoaned the lack of money Long Island gets for transportation and infrastructure improvements. “The amount of money that we send to Washington, that we send to Albany and have that many potholes should be unacceptable,” Stern said.
Over the past five years, Long Island’s share has gone down from 30% to 7% because of the NYTMC, which doles out the funding to each region. The problem, Stern said, is that, as a region, Long Island is lumped in with New York City, Westchester and Rockland, among other localities. “We are being shortchanged in a very substantial way,” he said.
In response, he and Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) have introduced legislation in which Long Island would separate from the NYTMC so they would not have to fight with the city or the other downstate areas for their fair share of funding.
“We have the miles, we have the population and we have the geography,” Stern said. “The only thing we don’t have is the lyrics to match the music.”