Gotham’s mythical school budget “cuts”
Reporting today on New York City’s plan to lay off 780 school employees in October, an article in The New York Times explains: “The layoffs are a direct consequence of budget cuts to schools, which have occurred in each of the last four years, forcing principals to make tough decisions about what and whom to do without.”
In fact, while city agencies have endured a series of mid-year reductions, annual spending on city schools has not been cut over the past four years. The Department of Education (DoE) budget has increased every single year since fiscal 2008, rising a total of nearly 15 percent during that period. The chart at right tells the story for the past decade. Those pending layoffs aren’t occurring because the budget was cut, but because this year’s increase of 2.6 percent isn’t enough to cover rising costs (and, according to the mayor, because DC 37 refused to make concessions that might temporarily have saved their jobs).
The standard budgetary measure actually understates the full amount spent on schools — because, among other things, it excludes pensions, debt service and other expenses that are centrally budgeted by the city. Including these costs, total spending on city schools this year will come to nearly $24 billion, up more than $1 billion over 2010, including a whopping $500 million increase in pension contributions for DoE employees. That works out to about $24,000 per pupil.
And absent a renewed economic boom or a significant tax increase, this trend is not sustainable.
If one accepts that there should be cuts at NYC DoE, there is an important issue that is not receiving sufficient attention: WHAT should be cut? The NYC Department of Education is a famously bloated bureaucracy, with an extraordinary number of contract consultants charging the fiscally challenged system top dollar. Yet, the cuts that are continually proposed, and now implemented, are primarily lay-offs at the school and classroom level. Why not shrink the bureaucracy, spend less on equipment (new $120 million Verizon contract, for example),lower the amounts spent on consultants? The things which are being cut - school cleaning, classroom aides, parent coordinators, health aides - impact children and their communities most directly. The number of classroom teachers has already been cut. Seem like simply another salvo in the continuing attempts to punish or destroy unions, with little concern for the children and the education they actually receive.
Comment by Susan Lerner — August 24, 2011 @ 11:18 am
It’s Just More ” Kicking The Can Down The Road ” !!! There Will Be A Day Of Reckoning !!!
Another Mayor ” In Bed With The Unions ” !!! Will Someone Just Say ” NO ” !!!
Comment by eatingdogfood — August 24, 2011 @ 2:05 pm
Why not? Truth known, legislators on both sides and the Governor are taking bribes (political contributions) from the teachers unions too, which is why they refuse to touch Triborough and let school boards roll back outrageous contracts and unparalleled compensation structures. NYSUT simply flows those dollars back to the politicians.
What a scam!
Comment by John Kelch — August 27, 2011 @ 7:38 pm
[...] budget office (IBO) has just put out a report on public-school spending and demographics. Despite apocalyptic talk of cuts, school spending is up 2 percent cumulatively over the last three years, even after accounting for [...]
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