Chancellor Carranza, your nose is growing
Claims there’s no DOE bloat left to cut, but critics say . . .
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza says students will suffer next school year because he can’t find anything more to cut in the Department of Education’s $34 billion budget. Insiders say he’s lying. “There is no fat to cut, there is no meat to cut — we are at the bone,” Carranza testified Tuesday at a City Council budget hearing.
Education advocates and DOE staffers say his claim belies the bureaucratic bloat and bonanza of pay raises and promotions that have exploded during the tenures of Mayor de Blasio and Carranza.
“It’s just inconceivable there’s not waste in that budget,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters. “Clearly there are more savings that can be made by cutting unnecessary contracts, consultants, and the mid-level bureaucracy, which has more than doubled in spending since de Blasio took office in 2014.”
The city has proposed $827 million in DOE cuts, including slashing school budgets by $285 million. This would reduce arts programs, counselors and social workers in needy districts, and college-prep for high schoolers. The DOE would also put off new classes for 3-yearolds, installation of air conditioners, and rat extermination.
“Students are going to feel bigger class sizes . . . the reduction in services, the reduction in enrichment activities,” Carranza warned.
Instead of slashing programs for students, critics say the DOE should chop away at the vast array of high-salaried supervisors, consultants and contractors who do not work in schools or directly serve kids.
The DOE employs 1,189 educrats making $125,000 to $262,000 a year, records obtained by The Post show. Of those, 50 take home $200,000plus — more than double the 21 at that salary level in fiscal year 2018.
Despite the army of six-figure supervisors, the DOE just inked a two-month, $1.2 million contract with Accenture LLP to advise the chancellor on school-reopening options at rates of up to $425 an hour. Another three-year Accenture contract costs the DOE $1.7 million a year.
In a case study in bureaucratic bloat, the DOE’s Office of School Wellness, led by executive director Lindsey Harr, promoted 19 employees to supervisory posts over the past year, with pay hikes of up to 45 percent.
Harr’s own salary ballooned by $41,416, or 28 percent, to $189,041. She paid a consultant $19,000 to advise on reorganizing her 93-person staff.
A “senior director of implementation,” making $185,944 a year, appointed four “directors of implementation” under her to supervise 45 staffers — about 10 each. Three received 40 percent pay hikes, to $110,419; the fourth makes $118,418.
In what a fed-up staffer called “favoritism,” Harr let two parttime employees bump up to full time.
The employees’ salaries of $103,211 and $112,791, respectively, kicked up in March, just as schools closed and they could work from home.
“They are taking advantage of the system,” the staffer said. “They get a financial benefit during a global pandemic, while first-responders have to find help or send their kids to cityrun child-care centers.”
The DOE said all salary hikes were justified by the employees’ increased responsibilities.