SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The public will have a chance to weigh in on the Syracuse City School District budget this week. A public hearing will be held Wednesday evening.

The district's budget is actually part of the city's overall budget and therefore must be approved by common councilors and the mayor. They discussed the $365 million spending plan Monday night.

One of the larger concerns for common councilors is not the budget itself, but what they say is an unfair distribution of state aid. They said it is up to the state legislature to fix the balance, and redistribute money from the richer, downstate districts to the poorer ones upstate.

Nader Maroun, a Syracuse Common Councilor said, “I think it's going to happen. I think that, particularly our own state legislators from the Central New York area understand the severity of the problem, now it's become more acute, given these mandated costs that we have in the district that we don't have the funding to be able to do."

Once the council approves the school budget, it will be sent to the mayor for her approval.