Monday, August 01, 2022

COMPTROLLER LANDER IDENTIFIES $800 MILLION EXTRA FUNDS; UFT SOLIDARITY WRITING LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR LAWSUIT TO GET A NEW CITY COUNCIL VOTE ON SCHOOL BUDGETS

The money needed to fully fund the schools is there. This is from Comptroller Brad Lander:

Comptroller’s Fiscal Year-End Analysis Shows City Has Funds to Fully Reverse Cuts to School Budgets and Increase Deposits to Rainy Day Fund

Comptroller’s office identifies $800 million in FY22 year-end excess revenues that could be deposited into long-term savings to prepare for economic downturn.

Updated forecast for DOE federal Covid stimulus rollover shows more than enough to cover the $469 million reduction in school budgets.

New York, NY – New York City Comptroller Brad Lander announced today that his office’s FY22 year-end fiscal review continues to identify sufficient resources to fully cover school budget cuts, while also substantially increasing the City’s Rainy Day Fund to prepare for the possibility of an economic downturn.

“Preparing for the future means both fully funding our schools to help our kids recover from the pandemic and getting our fiscal house in order for the possibility of a recession,” said Comptroller Lander. “Our year-end analysis shows we can do both. There’s no fiscal need to shortchange our kids.”

The Comptroller’s office review found that the City will end the year with $800 million in tax revenues above what was included in financial plan at the time the City’s budget was adopted. These additional revenues were not projected in either the FY22 or FY23 budgets.

Comptroller Lander urges that these excess revenues be placed in the City’s Rainy Day Fund, to prepare to soften the blow of a possible economic downturn. The Mayor and the City Council made significant FY22 deposits of $2.2 billion into the City’s long-term reserves (the Rainy Day Fund, aka the Revenue Stabilization Fund, plus the Retiree Health Benefits Trust fund). This brings the City’s long-term reserves to $6.55 billion, or 9.4% of tax revenues, still well below the 16 percent that the Comptroller’s office projects would be needed to weather the full length of a recession. An additional $800 million would put the City’s long-term reserves above $7 billion for the first time ever. The Comptroller also called for the City to adopt a formal policy for deposits, fund target, and withdrawals.

At the same time, the Comptroller’s office updated its estimate of Federal Covid stimulus dollars allocated to the New York City Department of Education (DOE). As of June 2022, the DOE has spent $2.33 billion of the $3.02 billion in stimulus dollars budgeted. While the DOE can continue to expend through September, the Comptroller’s office estimates that $505.6 million remains yet uncommitted, enough to fully cover the $469 million Fair Student Funding cut from school budgets for FY23. (DOE claims that the amount being cut from individual schools is $215 million, but the Comptroller’s analysis of the actual school budgets shows the gap facing principals is more than double that figure). In total, the City currently has $4.4 billion remaining in federal Covid stimulus aid for education that must be spent by FY25.

There are sufficient funds to have record reserves. There's no need to excess anyone or cut any school's budget.

In other news, UFT Solidarity is fighting the cuts.

Solidarity UFT

Press Release: UFT Solidarity Stands In Support Of The Suit TUCKER, KOTLER, Et Al. V. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, And The CHANCELLOR OF THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, David C. Banks.

HOME  / STATEMENTS  / PRESS RELEASE: UFT SOLIDARITY STANDS IN SUPPORT OF THE SUIT TUCKER, KOTLER, ET AL. V. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AND THE CHANCELLOR OF THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DAVID C. BANKS.

Press Release: UFT Solidarity stands in support of the suit TUCKER, KOTLER, et al. v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, and the CHANCELLOR OF THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, David C. Banks.

STATEMENTS, UFT SOLIDARITY NEWS  JULY 31, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 31, 2022

NEW YORK: UFT Solidarity stands in support of the suit TUCKER, KOTLER, et al. v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, and the CHANCELLOR OF THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, David C. Banks.

Alarmed at what they have concluded is an unlawful and unsustainable City-wide budget for public schools, public school educators affiliated with Solidarity,  the second largest caucus of the United Federation of Teachers, stands in support with the petitioners, PEP members, and legal personnel who filed the suit TUCKER, KOTLER, et al on July 17. Solidarity’s membership has become alarmed by steep budget cuts impacting Title 1 schools and the large numbers of teachers being excessed from school communities where they have worked for years. 

After examining the city’s proposed budget and recalling the track record of city officials to date, the union caucus has concluded that many students, staff, and their family members would suffer unnecessarily if the City does nothing additional to fully fund schools with all their earmarked federal pandemic funding (and not district, borough, or Central DOE offices). 

Under Mayor Eric Adams’s proposed City budget, schools would face $215 million in cuts during the 2022-23 school year and $295 million the following year and would be hit with the full $375 million cut in the 2024-25 school year. While the cuts are tied to K-12 declining enrollment —which has dropped by 9.5% since the beginning of the pandemic — Solidarity members believe this will hurt students as they continue grappling with the academic and social-emotional toll from the pandemic.

Students are not the only victims of the budget cuts. Almost a thousand UFT members have been excessed from their schools and are no longer on their schools’ payroll. If these members cannot find a new school to hire them, they will go into the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool. Michael Bloomberg and then-UFT President Randi Weingarten established the ATR pool when large numbers of public schools were shut down and principals were given control over their budgets and had the ability to eliminate programs and teachers from their budget. Prior to 2022, there are a few hundred ATRs remaining. The only reason that there are ATRs at all is that the Bloomberg policymakers are still in charge and have resisted the Chancellor’s goal to place ATRs in vacancies. If Adams’ proposed budget cuts get pushed through, we will see a larger number of ATRs being shuffled from school to school, because the DOE is unable, or unwilling , to place them in a stable school of their choosing where they can teach and establish roots.

Solidarity Council Member Kathy Perez states, “The Adams administration is once again missing an opportunity to greatly improve the public school experience for children and families. Instead of seeing this decrease in enrollment as an opportunity to lower class sizes, add social workers and counselors to school staff, provide more remedial, extracurricular, and enrichment opportunities for  students, the Adams administration has decided to slash budgets, thereby insuring that schools will continue to have to scramble to find basic resources. They are completely squandering an opportunity to actually show the commitment to public education that they certainly love to talk about, but when given the opportunity to either help or hurt kids, they stick to business as usual and make children and families pay the price.”

Solidarity Council Member Daniel Leopold states, “It is extremely puzzling how the people who vehemently objected to “Defund the Police” which was actually meant reallocate funds to areas that need more funding, are so quiet now that funding for public schools are being drastically cut.  This is a recipe for creating an idiocracy in NYC through the ripple effects in years to come generated by these cuts.  We need transparency in how the cuts were determined for each and every school in NYC.”

Solidarity Council Member Joanne Millar states, “Restoring the budget cuts would drastically increase the amount of individualized attention able to be given to every city student thereby increasing their academic achievement and propelling SEL advances made exponentially further since the SEL initiative was put in place during the pandemic. Cutting the budget so drastically is plain thievery from our city’s youth by the mayor.”

UFT Member Jessica Beck states, “The Adams administration prioritizes political interests over the real families, children, educators, and classrooms impacted by these budget cuts. Public education is vital to our communities, and this barefaced move toward privatization is a boldly shameful gesture when mayoral control is so hotly disputed.”

Solidarity Caucus member and High School Executive Board Delegate Lydia Howrilka informed membership, “We are pleased with the Court’s ruling. This is a tremendous win for UFT members. While we wish the TRO would result in schools being granted their lost funding immediately, we are happy that Judge Frank is ordering that the City is enjoined from making any further cuts to school budgets and the spending must remain at the levels in their FY 22 budgets. We look forward to a positive outcome for the petitioners, community members, and students after next week’s hearing.”

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, our contract now expires in weeks.

Anonymous said...

The Mayor and the Chancellor have acted in bad faith. That was determined by the judge, and he issued a temporary restraining order.

Next the city council must provide the mayor with a "consequence".

Instead of raising the charter limit as the mayor was attempting to accomplish with his scam, the city council should instead reduce the number of charter schools by converting 200 NY city charter school into regular community DOE public schools. This consequence would go a long way in deterring this mayor from playing the role of a clown in the future.

It would serve as a powerful lesson for him next time he overreaches and breaks the law as he did this past month,

Anonymous said...

Why don’t we make the argument that the DoE has a bloated central administration and any cuts should come from there? We’re losing kids left and right, so who thinks we deserve the same funding. Let’s take it from Central.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I am not willing to give up cost of living increases to fund this. Note a cost of living increase is not a raise. We have bills to pay and our raises need to keep up with inflation.

Anonymous said...

Just shut down the Klein Educational Palace at Tweed. By its closure, tens of millions of dollars can be put to better use with more school funding.

Anonymous said...

They found Difucko's wifes 800 million she lost for mental health lol? Doesn't matter if DOE had trillion dollar budget the money would be wasted with more woke programs.

We have a new contract coming and you would think after 2 years of his wrong stance on vaccines and covid more would be mentioned. No articles on Biden and inflation. The money should follow the kids where they want to go. '

Whole DOE needs to be gutted top down. The tier 6 newbies will see 2% raises and jump for joy. Meanwhile, we need per session to be 60 plus and minimum of a 4% raise. Quick before monkeypox gets us!

Anonymous said...

Don't forget all the money wasted on the ATR pool for 15 plus years. I was an ATR for 3 years. All my prior years I had satisfactory or effective yet no school would take me because I took too much out of their budgets. I remember one year the DOE bragged how they hired 5,000 new teacher yet left almost 1,000 teachers floundering in the ATR pool. Ask any CEO or anyone with half a brain, if it is good economic sense to hire outside employees while you have satisfactory employees still on your payroll doing next to nothing. Thank God I was placed last year by the previous chancellor.

Get Stuff Done said...

The chancellor and mayor need to get rid of most of the people sitting on their a$$e$ in doe offices. The supervisor to the supervisor to the supervisor need to go. Put the money back into the people who actually TEACH not the people who tell us what needs to be done and never have done it or did it for a year and got out.

WAKE up mayor. THINK AND GET STUFF DONE. STOP WITH THE EMAILS weekly and actually do something.

Pay the people who actually GET STUFF DONE a cost of living increase equal to the cost of living increase!
respect us and give us 8.25 on our tda's
Get rid of the extended day
Show respect and real gratitude to the people who don't hide at home working in home offices.
Give the people commuting the funds to pay for gas to get to work or who risk their lives taking the NYC subway trains to work while the Tweed people are home or taking ubers.

RESPECT US by giving us what we deserve!

Anonymous said...

Yes, giving teachers more free time to sleep and relax and do activities they like will make them better teachers in the end. Stop making us stay after school causing all of us to get home late.

Anonymous said...

I really don’t understand how anyone thinks it matters to teachers. Do any commenters believe additional funds will be used to do anything but hire and pay more bureaucrats or fund useless pet projects. Honest question.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone heard anything about teacher's choice this year?

Anonymous said...

If they really wanted to kill public education, all they have to do offer remote learning to HS student and then watch enrollment REALLY drop! Then start remote pilots for Middle Schools and Elementary students. Bye-Bye...

Anonymous said...

Always keep an eye on the money trail and the opps
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2022/08/charter-school-super-pac-targets-state-sens-robert-jackson-gustavo-rivera/375263/

Anonymous said...

Principals received this yesterday,

Principals,

I’m pleased to announce additional budget flexibility for schools this upcoming school year, as well as the allocation of the first tranche of budget appeals.

- $100 million of stimulus funding currently allocated under SAM 31 for Academic Recovery may now be used to fund teacher positions in addition to the purposes currently described under the SAM. Schools should expect to be able to use funding for these purposes by tomorrow. This will allow schools to provide additional instructional services or to continue critical programming to help students in their academic recovery from the pandemic.

- Additional appeals funding will be available this year for schools which are unable to provide mandated services based on a thorough review of the appeals already submitted. The first tranche of this appeals funding will go out by tomorrow, and we expect additional appeals to be granted as soon as possible.

We're pleased these measures will provide additional budget stability for this year. But please note that schools should not expect that these resources will be available to support staffing in FY 2024, and should tailor staffing and programming appropriately to prepare for this funding to phase out. The Division of School Leadership Field Teams are available to assist you in planning for long-term changes in your school’s budget.

Anonymous said...

If there ever is a huge teaching shortage in the country, remote learning is the way they will get people into the career. Imagine never having to leave your home and get paid for it. This will also give justification for low pay and low benefits.

Anonymous said...

https://nypost.com/2022/08/03/nyc-has-100m-in-covid-19-aid-to-hire-public-school-teachers/amp/

Anonymous said...

Confused as to why $38B wasn't/isn't enough...

Anonymous said...

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/newyork/news/court-hearing-today-over-proposed-budget-cuts-to-new-york-city-schools/

Anonymous said...

A Judge Said He Would Reverse New York City’s School Budget
Budget cuts to schools have caused an uproar. After parents and teachers sued, a judge on Thursday gave the City Council the chance to revisit the school budget and vote again.
NY Times

Anonymous said...

Judge Says He Will Toss Out New York City School Budget
After parents and teachers sued, a judge on Thursday said he would give the City Council the chance to revisit the school budget and vote again.
NY Times

Anonymous said...

https://www.nysun.com/article/new-budget-expected-for-new-yorks-schools

Anonymous said...

Big THANK YOU to
Leonie Haimson and Patrick Sullivan!