Mayor Adams’ budget proposal includes a nearly $1 billion cut to the city’s Education Department, but funding for individuals schools won’t go down next year, city Schools Chancellor David Banks said Monday.
The temporary policy comes as education officials predicted dramatic pandemic-era enrollment declines to level off next year. That was expected to stabilize many of the initial budgets principals receive to hire teachers and plan for the school year.
Schools may still see changes in specific budget line items, including through the local formula or federal support for schools with high percentages of poor children, but Banks said the city will cover any gaps.
“We will ensure that all in, schools will be held flat or see an increase,” he told City Council members at a budget hearing.
Individual schools’ budgets cover expenses like staff salaries and other fundamentals. But the rest of the Education Department budget — which pays for a wide array of programs and services for students — is set to drop a whopping $959 million under Adams’ executive budget proposal, which is being hashed out with the Council. The expected drop comes as an infusion of federal pandemic aid dwindles and Adams ordered city agencies to submit multiple rounds of savings plans.
Banks on Monday promised more details as school budgets are released.
Projections released this month suggested close to 767,500 students could enroll in kindergarten through 12th grade next school year — a 0.6% decrease since last fall and the smallest annual drop since the pandemic began.
Last year, education officials predicted a nearly 4% decrease and tied individual school budgets for the first time in recent years to enrollment. The cuts led to a summer of protests, as some schools had to let go of beloved teachers and staff and trim programming.
“We are continuing to hear about how much the cuts from this year have harmed the educational experiences and just building out the real supports for schools,” said City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn), adding that she’s heard from “countless” schools.
Enrollment is expected to drop less than previous estimates due to an influx of roughly 16,000 migrant students coming to the city. While no school will see less money than their initial budget last year, soon-to-be-released allocations could fall below current figures if principals have since received more money for additional students.
Education officials also did not rule out that schools could still see their budgets reduced later in the next school year if they have lower than expected enrollment. Before the pandemic, the city would make midyear adjustments to school budgets depending on how many students showed up in the fall, compared with projections from the spring.
“It’s hard for us to make a full-on commitment beyond the initial allocation,” said Banks. “What does that mean? That means if a school has 500 students, but by the middle of the year they’ve dropped down to 200 students, we’re not going to make the commitment today to say, no matter what, there’ll be no adjustment even at that point.”
Some Council members had questions about how the policy would play out in practice.
“If I’m a principal of a school and I’ve got a chancellor telling me we’re going to hold you harmless, we’re giving you all the money, but we’re gonna change our mind at some point during the school year, it’s very difficult to plan,” said Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn).
He pushed for a policy that extended for the full school year, saying, “You’re trying to get through this budget, and you want us to approve it, you want us to go easy on you today.”
Principals are expected to receive school budgets by the end of this month.
Outside their individual allocations, several programs funded in the citywide budget are on the chopping block, including child-care programs for undocumented families and mental health programs in schools where the need is high.
A final city budget is due by July 1.