Maloney: “Life or death” for Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery
school district
HIGHLAND FALLS – The Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School
District receives $2 million annually from Washington to cover the loss
of taxable property. A total of 93 percent of the land in the district
is federal- or state-owned with the US Military Academy at West Point
and Palisades Interstate Park lands.
Every few years, the federal government re-ups legislation to provide
the federal impact aid, but Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-18),
calling it a “life or death” situation, is worried that this
year could be a different story.
“We are concerned that the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos,
said something almost unimaginably ignorant about the program suggesting
that if kids did not live on the federal land they wouldn’t be impacted
by the cut. That just badly misunderstands how it works. Unfortunately,
you have a Secretary of Education that just does not understand the impact
aid programs,” Maloney said.
The representative was joined by Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery school
officials on the first day of classes on Tuesday to call for continuation
of the impact aid program
