$10B OK FOR SCHOOLS
Key city panel approves plan it had rejected
A city education panel has approved the same $10 billion school budget proposal it previously rejected, after the Education Department promised to review its funding formula.
Twelve of the 15 members of the city’s Panel for Education Policy voted in favor of the budget Wednesday night, with one abstention, one no vote, and once absence — clearing the way for principals to start hiring teachers and purchasing supplies for next year.
Schools Chancellor David Banks promised to form a “working group” to re-evaluate and tweak the formula in the future, but argued that in the meantime, the formula must be passed in its current form to prevent the system from “grinding to a halt.”
Debate over the 15-year-old funding formula surfaced during the panel’s April meeting, when members delivered a rare rebuke to the city Education Department by rejecting it, citing its lack of dedicated dollars for foster kids and homeless students. Panel members also criticized the Education Department for failing to publicly release a report from a task force of parents and educators that spent years developing recommendations to change the formula.
But despite the rejection, the DOE submitted the exact same formula for the panel to consider in May — and got a different result.
Since last month, Mayor Adams appointed his ninth and final member to the panel, filling a vacancy left by a former appointee, a Staten Island pastor, who resigned after a Daily News story about previous anti-gay statements she made.
Several members of the panel appointed by borough presidents who abstained from the vote last month switched to a “yes” this month, saying they were satisfied by the DOE’s promise to set up a working group to review the formula.
The vow to review the way money is spent and the passage of the same budget that was rejected last month does not sit well with parent advocates.
“You all had the time to take a look at this formula and came back with the same formula,” said NeQuan McLean, the president of Community Education Council 16 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “It’s a form of disrespect to this community.”