plan found that the cost of providing a sound basic education in New York City was $1.93 billion in additional annual operating funds, and that Governor Pataki's proposal to provide $4.7 billion in additional funding amounted to a policy choice to exceed the constitutional minimum. Second, in light of recently enacted legislation designed to allow the State to remedy inadequacies in New York City schools facilities, we reject as unnecessary the Appellate Division's directive regarding capital improvement. Therefore, we modify the order of the Appellate Division, in two ways. We declare that the constitutionally required funding for the New York City School District includes, as demonstrated by this record, additional operating funds in the amount of $1.93 billion, adjusted with reference to the latest version of the GCEI and inflation since 2004. We vacate the requirement that the Governor and the Legislature implement a capital improvement plan that either expends $9.179 billion over the following five years "or otherwise satisfies the city schools' constitutionally recognized capital needs." As modified, we affirm.{**8 NY3d at 28} III. In CFE II, we expressed the necessity for courts to tread carefully when asked to evaluate state financing plans. On the one hand, the Judiciary has a duty "to defer to the Legislature in matters of policymaking, particularly in a matter so vital as education financing, which has as well a core element of local control. We have neither the authority, nor the ability, nor the will, to micromanage education financing." (100 NY2d at 925.) On the other hand, "it is the province of the Judicial branch to define, and safeguard, rights provided by the New York State Constitution, and order redress for violation of them" (id.). The need for deference, where appropriate, is no less important for this Court than [*9]it is for the Judiciary as a whole. We are the ultimate arbiters of our State Constitution (see e.g. Cohen v State of New York, 94 NY2d 1, 11 [1999]). Yet, in fashioning specific remedies for constitutional violations, we must avoid intrusion on the primary domain of another branch of government. We have often spoken of this tension between our responsibility to safeguard rights and the necessary deference of the courts to the policies of the Legislature. "While it is within the power of the judiciary to declare the vested rights of a specifically protected class of individuals, in a fashion recognized by statute . . . the manner by which the State addresses complex societal and governmental issues is a subject left to the discretion of the political branches of government" (Matter of New York State Inspection, Sec. & Law Enforcement Empls., Dist. Council 82, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v Cuomo, 64 NY2d 233, 239-240 [1984] [citations omitted]). When we review the acts of the Legislature and the Executive, we do so to protect rights, not to make policy. Our deference to the Legislature's education financing plans is justified not only by prudent and practical hesitation in light of the limited access of the Judiciary "to the controlling economic and social facts," but also by our abiding "respect for the separation of powers upon which our system of government is based" (Matter of 89 Christopher v Joy, 35 NY2d 213, 220 [1974]). We cannot "intrude upon the policy-making and discretionary decisions that are reserved to the