APPELLATE DIVISION UPHOLDS POWERFUL COURT ORDER ON PUBLIC EDUCATION BY PANEL OF JUDICIAL REFEREES INCLUDING NAM HEARING OFFICER WILLIAM C. THOMPSON

March 30 2006,

The New York State Appellate Division has rejected an appeal and directed the state to implement a funding plan that would provide New York City public schools with a least $5.65 billion in additional annual operating funds to be phased in over a four year period.

State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse ordered the state to provide the additional funding on March 16, 2005 after a Referee's report determined that city schoolchildren had been shortchanged. The State Attorney General made a cross motion to reject the report, but the Appellate division denied the appeal this week.

NAM Hearing Officer William C. Thompson, a former Associate Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, was one of three judicial referees appointed to serve on the panel that also included John D. Feerick, the Dean of Fordham Law School and Hon. E. Leo Milonas, former Chief Administrator of the New York State Courts.

-We were right, Justice Thompson said when told of the Appellate decision. It took us 120 days and 7 hearings to make our recommendations. Anybody who was anyone in education was at the hearings.?

The court also ordered the state to expend a minimum of $12 billion on capital improvements over the next five years and to provide periodic reviews of the cost of providing the opportunity of providing a sound basic education to all public school students in New York City.

Click here to view Judge Thompson's resume.