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,” Maloney said. “That just badly misunderstands how it works. Unfortunately, you have a Secretary of Education that just does not understand the impact aid programs.”
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.
