Footnote 4: Specifically, the Appellate Division directed that "in enacting a budget for the fiscal year commencing April 1, 2006, the Governor and the Legislature consider, as within the range of constitutionally required funding for the New York City School District, as demonstrated by this record, the proposed funding plan of at least $4.7 billion in additional annual operating funds, and the Referees' recommended annual expenditure of $5.63 billion, or an amount in between, phased in over four years, and that they appropriate such amount, in order to remedy the constitutional deprivations found in CFE II" (29 AD3d at 191). Footnote 5: Indeed this variation was the focus of Board of Educ., Levittown Union Free School Dist. v Nyquist (57 NY2d 27 [1982]); we held that the State's public school financing system did not violate the Equal Protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions, despite wide spending disparities among school districts. Footnote 1: I concur with the majority that no further judicial direction is required with respect to capital improvements or accountability. Footnote 2: Indeed, our State Constitution places the obligation to provide all the state's children with a sound basic education squarely on the Legislature: "The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated" (NY Const, art XI, § 1 [the Education Article]). Footnote 3: "Core operations" exclude debt service and capital and transportation spending. Footnote 4: However, the particular GCEI used by Standard & Poor's in its Resource Adequacy Study was outdated. Accordingly, as the majority recognizes and defendants concede, the $1.93 billion ordered by the Court must be adjusted using the correct GCEI. Footnote 5: Evidence in the record indicated that such nationally derived weightings generally "result from guesses or policy decisions based on the amount of available funding" and "are essentially arbitrary and do not reflect the actual costs of providing adequate educational opportunities to students with special needs." Footnote 6: The $5.63 billion calculated by the referees reflected both the updated GCEI and an adjustment for inflation from January 2004 to 2004-2005 dollars. Without those corrections, this amount equated to the Standard & Poor's permutation that resulted in $5.26 billion. Indeed, all figures calculated by Standard & Poor's and proffered before the referees were measured in January 2004 dollars. As defendants concede, the $1.93 billion endorsed by the majority must be adjusted for inflation.

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