Senator Martins: State Budget Should End the Gea This Year

     Senator Jack M. Martins (R-7th Senate District) and his colleagues in the Senate Majority are calling for the complete abolishment of the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) in this year’s state budget. 

     The GEA was first imposed on New York schools in 2010, before Senator Martins was a member of the Senate, by former Governor David Paterson and the New York City Democrats who controlled the Senate and Assembly at the time. Senator Martins has continually opposed the GEA because it created severe cuts to the bottom lines for public schools.

     “The GEA was an ill-conceived, unfair scheme which took billions of dollars in education aid away from our students and increased costs for already over-burdened taxpayers. It needs to go, period. Eliminating the GEA helps our schools, our students, and our communities. We’ve made progress over the last several years in restoring these harmful school aid cuts, and this year’s state budget should finish the job and get rid of the GEA once and for all,” said Senator Martins.

     Since taking office, Senator Martins has strongly supported efforts to abolish the GEA and deliver major funding increases to help mitigate its impact on education. The GEA cuts have been reduced by 62 percent – from a high of $2.6 billion in the 2011-2012 budget to $1 billion in the 2014-15 budget – to help restore significant state aid to schools.

     Last year, Senator Martins and his Senate colleagues successfully negotiated an additional $602 million in the State budget to help schools overcome the GEA challenge- 86 percent more than proposed by the Governor and nearly seven times the amount proposed by the Assembly. That funding represented a major step towards lessening the GEA’s burden on school budgets, but schools still face approximately $1 billion in anticipated GEA budget cuts for the upcoming fiscal year.

     Senator Martins has created an online petition which residents can sign to support the elimination of the GEA. Residents can sign the petition by clicking here.