The Farmingdale Council Parent Teacher Association (PTA) in recent weeks has stepped up lobbying efforts for state education funding, after Farmingdale School District administrators unveiled a draft 1998-99 budget on March 18.

The draft budget showed that Farmingdale is not receiving its fair share of state aid, according to Tina Diamond, president of the Farmingdale Council of PTAs, who expressed concern about the effect of the lack of funding.

Diamond said that at the March 18 budget presentation, PTA representatives realized, "that the district was pulling like a rubber band in all directions."

In efforts to reach lawmakers in Albany, the PTA had collected close to 300 signatures for lobbying letters by Wednesday - that, after only about a week of seeking them out at school events, according to Diamond. The letters will be sent to Governor George Pataki and four local state legislators - Senator Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City), Assemblyman Steve Labriola (R-Massapequa), Assemblyman James Conte (R-Huntington Station) and Assemblyman Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst).

The PTA is also seeking signatures from senior citizens in the community and from members of local civic associations.

"All of us feel strongly," Diamond said, "that our kids are being short-changed."

The letters, which were the same for each lawmaker and the governor, urged that the state permanently provide a minimum of 50 percent of total public elementary and secondary costs. "New York State bears a constitutional responsibility for the education of its children," the letter stated. "This year's state surplus provides an opportunity and obligation for our legislators to honor that constitutional responsibility by permanently providing a minimum of 50 percent total public elementary and secondary education costs."

The letter continued, "New York State has decreased its financial share for the education of its children over the last 10 years, while increasing state mandates, imposing higher educational standards and technology in the classroom.

"In Farmingdale, to compensate for the shortfall, and in order to maintain educational standards, our district has had to increase the tax burden on our local taxpayers. The widening gap between the 'property tax wealthy' and the 'property tax poor' school districts has resulted in educational financing inequities...thereby leaving our children short-changed."

Several of the PTA members involved in this effort are also participants in the Farmingdale school district's lobbying committee, which, too, pushes for more state aid. The committee does this through such activities as meeting with lawmakers in Albany, and giving them brochures which present the district's case. The committee includes Diamond, and Farmingdale PTA past presidents Barbara Brady and Marylou Arangio.

Diamond noted that a similar letter-writing effort was made by the Farmingdale PTA eight years ago, after drastic state aid cuts, and this is the first time that it has been done again since then. She added that the state has not yet fully restored education funding to the level it was 10 years ago. "The school budgets just don't have it," she said, expressing a belief that a lack of funding has had a cumulative negative effect on the district's finances throughout the decade.

In the draft Farmingdale school district budget presented March 18, it was projected that Farmingdale schools will receive $14 million in state aid for 1998-99. However, since the state budget has not yet been passed, that is an early guess. It also assumes that a substantial part of the New York State Budget Surplus will be applied to education.

The total spending of the draft of the Farmingdale school district budget, as presented on March 18, is $75,395,250, an increase of 6.92 percent over 1997-98. However, the district is in the process of conducting public meetings and workshops about the budget, during which changes in spending are being considered. For example, at an April 1 board of education meeting, Farmingdale Schools Assistant Superintendent for Business, Dr. William Fanning presented a summary of potential cuts to the initial draft budget, which described a possible 1 percent reduction in spending. That cut could be made possible by retirements, budget reductions related to staffing, and cuts to equipment and supplies.