NEW YORK – Just days after the New York state budget was approved by lawmakers, one legislator says the administration is “shortchanging upstate schools by more than $170 million.”

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer said Wednesday that with state education funding already “mired in doubt,” and property taxes remaining high, the federal government “must keep its promise to fund upstate schools.”

When the No Child Left Behind Act was originally passed by Congress, the bill included specific funding authorizations for Title I grants for every year of the bill. Schumer says funding has never been adequate. He says the state’s education department recently lost 40 cents per every dollar in Title I funding.

Schumer states that the federal administration’s 2008 budget levels for the program are only $13.9 billion, well below the levels included in the original legislation, which called for an estimated $25 billion in Title I grants.