New York lawmakers wrapped up the 2026-27 state budget in April with school funding as its centerpiece: total School Aid of roughly $39 billion, a $1.7 billion increase over the current school year, per the State Senate's budget summary, April 2026. Within that total, Foundation Aid — the formula that drives most of what local districts receive — stands at about $27.4 billion, with the enacted deal including a minimum 2 percent increase to the formula.
For suburban counties, the details of that formula matter more than the headline number. Foundation Aid is distributed based on student need, community wealth measures and regional cost differences, so every district's run is different. District-by-district aid runs are published by the Division of Budget, and property taxpayers can look up their own district's numbers to see what the state is chipping in before the local levy makes up the rest.
The timing is familiar to anyone who follows a school board calendar. Districts set their own budgets in the spring using estimates of state aid, then adjust after the state's final numbers arrive. By July, the uncertainty is largely resolved: districts know roughly what they are getting, and the county's towns and villages set property tax levies against that backdrop.
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What this means for Rockland County: the guaranteed Foundation Aid floor is the closest thing local districts have to a promise from Albany. A 2 percent minimum increase does not fully cover contractually negotiated raises, transportation contracts and special education costs, which is why school boards here still face hard choices between programs and the tax cap. But for districts in Clarkstown, Ramapo, Orangetown and Haverstraw, an aid year with a guaranteed formula increase is meaningfully easier than a flat one — and it removes the worst-case scenario of a proposed aid cut that boards had to plan around earlier in the spring.
Residents who want the specifics can check their district's School Aid Run — the line-item breakdown the state publishes for every district — to see exactly how the new money lands: which portion is Foundation Aid, which is expense-based aid like transportation, and which is categorical funding with strings attached.