If there is one thing school district leaders and boards of education are realizing going into the current fiscal crisis, it's that history can repeat itself.

Grappling with what state Gov. David Paterson describes as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, every school district across the state is bracing for drastic cuts in school aid for the next academic year's budget.

It's been nearly a month since district administrators and boards of education learned of Paterson's proposal to reduce spending and close a $13.7 billion deficit for the next fiscal year, in part by slashing school aid by 3.3 percent, or $698 million. And in that time - and in the weeks and months ahead - district leaders are thinking about how they can plug the leak and save money without critically injuring education.

But this is not the only time schools have been significantly impacted by a larger fiscal crisis. As leaders ponder the options going into the next budget season, they are also looking back nearly two decades to the last time the state chopped school aid. Though many of the circumstances are different, district leaders and elected state officials are being sure to reflect on history to ensure the same mistakes aren't made twice.

The year was 1990 and New York was stewarded by Gov. Mario Cuomo. Faced with a $1 billion gap in the middle of the fiscal year, Cuomo proposed and the Legislature soon after enacted $190 million in midyear school aid cuts followed by a 10-percent reduction in aid for the 1991-1992 fiscal year, catching districts and their leadership by surprise.

“As a teacher I remember it to be a very grave situation,” said Skaneateles Central School District Superintendent Phil D'Angelo Jr., who at the time was a high school science teacher at the Livonia Central School District near Geneseo. “I remember the superintendent of the district called the whole faculty and staff together and said that the worst-case scenario was having layoffs and he actually named names. One of my best friends was potentially going to be laid off and luckily they were able to make adjustments (and find money) to offset the cuts in state aid and prevent the layoffs.”

But that wasn't the end of the story. A year later, he said, teachers that could be affected by layoffs moved to other districts “because they were afraid of what may happen in the future.

“It was a scary time and my perspective was in a classroom and how would that affect me, how would that affect my students, how would this impact the way we delivered education,” he said. “Fortunately, they rolled up their sleeves and we got through it. It was a scary time and here we are again. The story repeats itself.”

Well, not quite. While districts are shoving their hands deep inside their pockets or lifting up the proverbial couch cushions to find as much money as possible to offset the cuts in state aid, leaders in Albany note that are several differences between what is happening now and what occurred nearly two decades ago.

“I did experience as a state legislator those decisions that had to be made in the early 1990s and I have drawn a lot of parallels to what's occurring today,” state Sen. Michael Nozzolio said, who at the time was a sitting member of the state Assembly. “Although the situations are similar, there are a lot of differences. My biggest hope, though, is that the mistakes made by many in the early 1990s are not repeated today in this fiscal crisis.”

One notable difference, Nozzolio said, is the magnitude of the recession. The economic downturn facing the country and the state in the current year is far greater than that experienced 20 years ago, and it's affecting different sectors.

While he claims tax and spend philosophies of the Cuomo administration exacerbated the recession, Nozzolio said cutting school aid midyear was a blunder that left school districts scrambling.

“I believe it was a mistake and I opposed it in the early 1990s to cut school aid midyear,” he said. “School districts had no way to respond. They already hired teachers, they already engaged in expenditures, they already set their budgets and tax levies, so the actions that occurred in the early 1990s in cutting aid simply wreaked havoc in the school districts.

“They didn't have time to prepare,” he continued. “They were forced to make decisions that were much more costly and they ended up spending more money to eliminate the problems that were created.”

Ginny Kent saw it first-hand. A native Auburnian, Kent and her young family lived in various parts of central New York until they returned to Auburn in 1992. One of the things that drove her home, Kent said, was how impressed she was with the Auburn Enlarged City School District, student achievement, class sizes and especially its music program.

But in the wake of the state aid cuts, the board of education decided to save money by cutting the elementary music program.

“We were concerned about everything, but this is what I focused on at the time,” she said, who at the time was an active parent in the district and is now a board member. “I worked with a few other people to do research on how this would affect the district down the road, what music education meant, what its value was.

“It was a quick and easy thing to do at the time, but it was like cutting a tree off its trunk and expecting the branches to continue to grow.”

Music instruction at the middle and high school levels died out within five years, she said.

Through her research, she discerned that cutting the music program caused more fiscal harm than good. Those middle and high school students who could have been in orchestra, chorus or band now had to be supervised in study halls or in other classes, which in turn required staff.

“As a parent, my concern was that that decision was made by people who had not really thought about long-term impact of getting rid of a program that's cost-effective because now you don't have the staff for the kids.”

As an aide to former State Assembly Majority Leader Michael Bragman during that time, state Sen. David Valesky witnessed the damage midyear cuts caused and how long it took for school districts to recover. So when Paterson proposed midyear cuts back in November to deal with the current crisis, the state Legislature refused to act on the proposal and opted instead to wait until the new Legislative session to look at the next fiscal year, in part, Valesky said, because of the experiences of the past.

But that doesn't mean school districts won't face painful decisions.

“I think no area of state spending can be immune from spending reductions,” Valesky said, “not when you are in the kind of fiscal crisis you are in. Nothing can be off the table. It's now upon us as legislators to review the governor's proposal and make changes and improve upon the proposal, but in the final analysis, the constitution requires a balanced budget, so challenging decisions need to be made and need to be made in a timely fashion.”

Leaders deeply entrenched in the education sector are preparing for the worst and for it to span several years.

“The budget cuts proposed today, if enacted, would likely lead to decreased services to students, the elimination of important programs, obviously layoffs of teachers and school staff, and it could mean a halting of the progress we've made in New York in terms of raising student performance and closing the achievement gap,” New York State United Teachers Spokesperson Carl Korn said. NYSUT is the union the represents 600,000 school district employees across the state.

Their assessment of the future is based upon a thorough review of the past, when under Cuomo's cuts class sizes increased and programs like remedial classes and summer school were axed from the budget.

“It invariably threatened the safety net, which includes school social workers, school guidance counselors, psychologists and those professionals who provide support for some of our most vulnerable kids,” he said.

While Korn knows that the state needs to find money somewhere to make up the budget deficit, he suggests that rather take money away from schools and thereby students, the state should wait to see if there will be any federal aid, or even place a small tax increase on the wealthiest New Yorkers.

“Studies have shown that a small increase in the personal income tax could generate over $5 billion for the state treasury while impacting less than one percent of all taxpayers,” he said. “There are options available and we're hoping the governor will keep the door open.”

But at the end of the day, educating the next generation of New Yorkers is and should be paramount.

“I think that a child is in school only once,” Korn said, “and they have one opportunity to get the best education possible. That year in a child's life is too important to take away education programs that they need, and cutting education programs at a time when we're trying to raise standards and close the achievement gap is a very short-sided approach.

“Rather than hurting children and their schools and shifting more of the burden to local property taxpayers, the best solution is to ask the most affluent New Yorkers to pay their fair share.”

Nozzolio has another option. One way he thinks districts can see a reprieve is by way of eliminating the myriad unfunded mandates placed on them in recent years. Discussions in the Legislature are already underway, he said.

“We think that literally hundreds of millions of dollars of unfunded mandates can be lifted off the backs of school districts and allow them to do a better job in educating children as opposed to fulfilling administrative requirements,” he said. “This crisis is an opportunity for us to reform much of the education policy in this state.”

One other major difference between the two recessions, New York State Council for Superintendents Deputy Director Bob Lowry said, is the scope of the cuts.

Unlike Cuomo, who, in addition to the 10 percent school aid reduction for the 1991-1992 fiscal year, proposed changing the school aid formula so it permanently would reduce aid for districts, Paterson is proposing a temporary reduction in aid and freezing foundation aid and universal pre-kindergarten aid for two years while leaving the other aids - transportation and BOCES, for example - alone.

While Lowry gives Paterson credit for not fundamentally unraveling what he considers the positive reforms in state aid distribution enacted in 2007 that provided the poorer districts more aid - in fact, those changes caused an unprecedented increase in education funding - he cautions that cutting and freezing aid could be dangerous.

“A big concern is that we're retreating from this major reform in state aid and we have to be worried that if we freeze the formula for two years, maybe we'll fall so far behind implementing the reforms that we'll never be able to get back on track and we wind up losing this significant accomplishment.”

And though the cuts made in the early 1990s and again this year will be more significant for the wealthier school districts, Lowry said it will ultimately be the poorer districts and its tax base that may be injured the most.

Valesky shares that concern and how these cuts may impact the education schools provide, but he said if the Legislature were to restore any money, they would have to cut somewhere else.

“I think we will certainly try to do the best we possibly can to provide the resources necessary to provide a quality education, a quality public education, and at the same time not cause any further burden on property taxpayers,” he said. “How that happens, the details on how we get there will be determined over the next several weeks and several years, depending on the probable length of this crisis.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net