Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The temperature topped 70 degrees today, melting lots of snow and giving residents a welcome break from recent days that peaked in the 20s and 30s.

The top photo shows the silos at Poverty Hills Farm, a dairy farm on West Countyhouse Road owned by the Neal family. This picture was taken on Wednesday at dusk.

The high temperature is forecast for 56 on Friday, followed by highs of 37 on Saturday and 36 on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Rob Ortt speaks at a gun rights rally in Albion on Sept. 8.

Rob Ortt made fighting the SAFE Act a rallying cry while he was campaigning for State Senate last year.

Ortt was elected to his first term in November. He voted for his first state budget on Tuesday and his “yes” vote has angered Second Amendment Rights advocates because the budget includes money to enforce the SAFE Act.

“Words cannot fully describe how infuriated I am with your budget vote,” Mattie Zarpentine, New York Revolution Regional Director, writes to Ortt today.

Zarpentine, in her letter to Ortt, said he has met with members of SCOPE and issued many statements about opposition to the SAFE Act.

“Now, we have this disaster of a budget of which you say you are ‘pleased with the finished product,'” Zarpentine said in her letter.

“Mr. Ortt, you lied to your constituents. More importantly, and shamefully, you violated the Constitution by voting to fund the unconstitutional SAFE Act in both the capital projects bill and state operations bill,” said Zarpentine of Holley.

Ortt acknowledged the criticism in a Facebook post today, explaining his decision to support the budget.

“As a new State Senator, my first piece of legislation was signing on to a bill to repeal the SAFE Act,” Ortt writes. “In this budget, the Senate eliminated $7 million in the executive budget that was dedicated to establishing a pistol registration database. I am currently signed on to seven bills to roll back or outright repeal the SAFE Act, because as I’ve said, the SAFE Act was an unconstitutional infringement upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. I’m a combat veteran who fought for our rights abroad and I intend to defend them here at home as well.

“I disagree with the sentiment that we should have shut down government and defunded State Police, counterterrorism, and emergency services. The effects of such a drastic action would have been incomprehensible. I simply wasn’t willing to put people’s lives at risk in order to score political points with the governor.

“I will continue to fight the Governor and liberal New York City efforts to take away our guns and restrict our rights. There’s currently legislation to require gunowners to be tested. There’s a serious push to force ineffective micro-stamping requirements onto manufacturers and gunowners. And there are several bill mandating storage, which will financially burden gun owners while threatening their family’s safety. There’s even a bill that adds to the CoBIS ballistics database – the same CoBIS database that the state abandoned three years ago! These are the measures that the Governor and Assembly are trying to get passed. So in addition to fighting to repeal the SAFE Act, we need to also remain focused on these – and similar – dangerous pieces of legislation.”

Zarpentine, in her letter, said she would encourage other candidates to run against the Republican state senators who voted for the budget.

“You not only lied to the people in writing, but also in person…face-to-face,” Zarpentine writes to Ortt. “You, and the Senate, have done nothing but further entrench the distrust of politicians and Albany politics. I was active in encouraging people to be a part of the process – to vote and engage with their lawmakers. I no longer know what to tell people other than to start looking for candidates to run against those who betrayed us.”

Staff Reports

ALBANY – The new $142 bllion state budget includes a $1.3 billion increase in state aid to school districts, for $23.5 billion in total education funding.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was successful in tying the funding increase to a new system for evaluating teachers.

“When it comes to education, the budget we approved will transform our school system in comprehensive ways,” Cuomo said in a statement issued this morning. “The reforms we have included will move us to an education system that rewards results, addresses challenges and demands accountability.

“That’s why I tied a landmark 6 percent increase in new school spending – raising state funding of schools to a record-high $23.5 billion in this year’s budget – to vital reforms, including improvements to the systems for teacher evaluation, certification and preparation as well as providing new authority to improve failing schools.

“This year we are finally ensuring that New York’s education system will be about the students it is intended to serve, instead of just perpetuating a bureaucracy.

“I described the budget I first proposed just two months ago as an Opportunity Agenda. The importance of education reform that we fought to include in this year’s budget shows that we believe there is no greater path to opportunity than a good education.”

Cuomo’s office issued the following press release about some of the education changes:

Education Transformation Act of 2015

New York’s education system is set to implement some of its most dramatic and fundamental reforms in years through the Education Transformation Act. The budget includes the governor’s proposal for an increase of $1.3 billion in state education support to take education funding to its highest level ever – $23.5 billion.

The components of the transformation are as follows, :

1. Best and Brightest Recruitment: To attract our best and brightest to the teaching field, the Budget provides funding for a new full scholarship program for SUNY/CUNY for top students who commit to teach in New York for five years.

2. Graduate Education Program Accreditation: The first statewide, uniform admissions standards for teacher preparation programs will be established, and SED will have enhanced authority to close programs that fail to prepare students for the teaching profession.

3. Teacher “Bar” Exam / CTE: The State currently requires teachers to pass a teacher “bar” exam – and will now also require teachers to complete 100 hours of continuing education and recertify every five years or lose their licenses.

4. Teacher Evaluation System: A redesigned teacher evaluation system will be established whereby educators are rated in two categories, student performance and teacher observations.

Student Performance – Districts will use a standardized state measure, or may choose to use a state-designed supplemental assessment.

If a teacher receives an Ineffective rating in the state measure subcomponent, the teacher cannot be rated Effective or Highly Effective overall.

If a local district chooses to use a state-designed supplemental assessment and the teacher is Ineffective when both subcomponents are combined, the teacher must be rated Ineffective overall.

The state allocates weights for this category and its subcomponents.

Teacher Observations – This category must contain two subcomponents: principal observations and independent observations. Peer observations may be included at the discretion of the Commissioner.

If a teacher receives an Ineffective rating in the teacher observation category, the teacher cannot be rated Effective or Highly Effective overall.

The state allocates weights for this category and its subcomponents.

Teachers will be evaluated based on a four point scale. In regulations, the Commissioner shall set scoring bands, cut scores and weights, and the Commissioner must have the system put in place by June 30, 2015. Local districts must put evaluations in place by November 15, 2015, in order to be eligible for increased aid.

5. Reduce Student Testing: The Chancellor of the Board of Regents will outline to the Governor and Legislature recommendations by June 1, 2015 on how to decrease the overall amount of state and local testing, improve test quality, and reduce test-related stress and anxiety.

6. Tenure = Performance: The Education Transformation Act of 2015 reforms tenure so that it is based on performance and is not simply a function of time.

The probationary period will be extended to a minimum of four years with no automatic right to tenure at any point.

A teacher will have to be rated Effective or Highly Effective in at least three of four years to be eligible to receive tenure. If a teacher does not meet this threshold, he or she can be terminated or the district may extend the probationary period.

7. Bonuses & Promotions: A bonus of up to $20,000 will be provided to teachers who are top performers, and promotion opportunities will be tied to the evaluation system.

8. Teacher Removal:

For Ineffective teachers: Statewide, all hearings will be heard before a single officer rather than a panel. Local districts will be able to use new expedited removal proceedings for teachers with two consecutive Ineffective ratings, and will be required to do so for teachers with three consecutive Ineffective ratings.

For misconduct: Teachers accused of physical or sexual abuse will be suspended without pay and the hearing process will be expedited. Teachers convicted of violent felonies with a child victim will automatically lose their certifications.

9. Failing Schools:

Failing schools will be required to have a state-approved improvement plan in place with student achievement metrics and goals. If a failing school does not show demonstrable improvement at the end of one year, the school will go into receivership. During that year, either the Superintendent or the Chancellor will be vested with the increased powers of a receiver.

The receiver will have the power to hire and fire staff and restructure the school.

$75 million will be available to help failing schools improve.

Continued Pre-K Investment: The new state budget includes $365 million to continue our $1.5 billion commitment over five years for full-day 4-year old Pre-K.

Expanding Pre-K for 3-Year Olds and in High-Needs Districts: In addition, studies show that 3-year olds enrolled in high-quality programs make some of the largest gains in cognitive and behavioral skills. This budget invests an additional $30 million to expand Pre-K for 3 and 4 year-olds in high-needs districts.

Sen. Ortt sees positives with increased school aid

The $142 billion state budget passed the State Legislature, with the Assembly approving the final budget bills at 3 this morning.

State Assemblyman Steve Hawley, R-Batavia, issued this statement about why he opposed the budget.

“I cannot, in good conscience, support a budget that allows the state to have power over the needs of individual school districts and classrooms. The education component of the budget gives the State Department of Education (SED) too much latitude in implementing the teacher evaluation system.

“We should have included teacher groups and school administrators in these decisions instead of leaving it up to bureaucrats and armchair educators. Furthermore, this budget makes no mention of exceptions for special education teachers’ evaluations, whose students will likely struggle with Common Core testing, and we will likely see a large number of students score poorly on Common Core Assessments.

“I cannot support budget measures which include funding for the SAFE Act. The Capital Projects and State Operations budget bills appropriate millions to be used for the SAFE Act database and personnel. It is unfortunate that good legislation is often tainted with politically-advantageous appropriations. I refuse to vote for legislation that funds an irresponsible and shameful measure that was passed in the middle of the night without public input or adequate time for discussion and debate.”

State Sen. Robert Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, represents a district that includes Orleans County. He issued this statement on Tuesday about the education portion of the budget, which passed the State Senate.

“This budget increases state education aid by over $1.4 billion across the state to bring total state education spending in my district to over $457 million – well beyond the levels that the governor proposed,” Ortt said. “It eliminates most of the disastrous Gap Elimination Adjustment, which will save our local schools nearly $18 million. We’re helping our students by reducing over-testing and protecting our kids by removing convicted, violent offenders from the classroom.”

“I also think it was important to take a stand against some of the governor’s more extreme proposals like basing teacher performance evaluations 50 percent on testing, or refusing necessary funding increases without dramatic overhauls of the system. Ultimately, evaluations will be left to the professionals at the State Education Department and the Board of Regents, who will then implement evaluations on a district by district basis.

“It was also critical to fight back against a New York City agenda that wanted to provide taxpayer tuition assistance to illegal immigrants, while so many hard-working New York families struggle to put themselves or their children through college.”