PAYROLL TAX: The state budget’s inclusion of a higher payroll mobility tax in New York City but not the suburbs disproportionately hurts non-white workers, a report Monday from the liberal Fiscal Policy Institute contends. "The decision to exempt suburban counties from the MTA payroll tax affects workers of color twofold: first, this exemption decreases the share of white workers impacted by the tax; and second, workers of color have to bear an even higher tax burden, because the state increased the tax rate to make up for lost suburban revenue, the group’s economist Emily Eisner said in a statement. Initially, Hochul proposed to raise the payroll tax on all larger businesses in the MTA region, but suburban lawmakers railed against the increase – and it was dropped from the final budget deal. But the group said the move means that workers of color will now cover 69 percent more in MTA payroll tax after the enacted budget May 2. — Joseph Spector FARE HIKE: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to hike fares and tolls in August, transit officials said at a Monday finance committee hearing. The MTA has proposed raising the base fare of a subway and bus ticket by 5 percent to $2.90. Under the plan, one-way peak commuter rail passes would also increase by 4.6 percent, and E-ZPass tolls would increase as much as 7 percent. The agency may also get rid of its Atlantic Ticket pilot that discounts travel between downtown Brooklyn and select Long Island Rail Road stations, but has proposed introducing a new $7 ticket for commuter rail travel within city limits at peak hours. The agency has increased fares and tolls every two years since 2009 to keep operations afloat, but it skipped a planned fare hike in 2021 when the city was still in the throes of the pandemic. Lawmakers finalized a state budget earlier this month that includes new revenue streams for the MTA, which has suffered revenue losses because fewer people are using the system due to remote work. But it also requires the agency to increase its prices and find other operational savings. With fare hikes officially on the table, transportation advocates are pushing Mayor Eric Adams to expand the city’s Fair Fares program to provide discounted MetroCards to low-income residents. The MTA plans to hold public hearings in June so it can vote to approve the increase the following month. — Danielle Muoio Dunn EDUCATION: Additional education funds from the Project Open Arms initiative — a multi-agency initiative launched in August 2022 to enroll asylum seeker students and offer resources to them and their families — reached 600 schools as of April, according to a new brief by the New York City Independent Budget Office. The brief tracked the distribution of $26.7 million in Project Open Arms funds to public schools. The DOE said principals could use the funds for resources like tutoring, instructional curriculum and staff development to help English language learners. IBO identified 1,873 bilingual teachers and another 3,606 English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers across the 1,594 K-12 traditional public schools as of Oct. 31, 2022. Of the 1,873 bilingual teachers, 1,640 were teaching in Spanish. In the city’s 32 school districts, just under half of schools that got Project Open Arms allocations had at least one bilingual teacher. But roughly 22 percent of schools that didn’t receive an allocation had at least one bilingual teacher. About 49 percent of all schools that received allocations only had ESL teachers, with no bilingual teachers. “This report on the capacity of city schools to serve English Language Learners is especially timely given the influx of students whose primary language is not English,” IBO Director Louisa Chafee said in a statement. “It looks more deeply at the types of language instruction that are primarily offered, and where, which should be of interest to educators, policy makers and families of public school students.” — Madina Touré
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