Statement From Comptroller Brad Lander on Proposed Cuts to School Budgets in FY 2023

 

“It is unacceptable for the DOE to slash school budgets at this moment. Our schools have endured the hardest two years and need every penny to provide the social, emotional, and academic supports that all our students deserve this summer and fall. Meanwhile, DOE is sitting on nearly $5 billion dollars in unspent federal stimulus — funding that this administration has yet to outline a plan for. Holding our schools harmless from budget cuts must be part of that plan.

“The proposed cuts, based on DOE’s flawed enrollment projections, will result in losing teachers, class sizes getting larger, the loss of art, music, and science classes, reductions in recess and afterschool funding, and paraprofessionals and academic intervention services. This is not ‘right sizing’ school budgets — it is eliminating the fundamentals that our kids need to learn and grow.

“DOE can avoid this evisceration of school budgets.

“First, DOE must use a small portion of the remaining stimulus funding to cover the gap in school budgets for next year. DOE has yet to spend approximately $5 billion of federal stimulus funding – covering this gap in school budgets would cost less than 10% of those remaining funds.

“Second, DOE should rework how they forecast enrollment and per pupil funding for schools. DOE’s enrollment model relies on trendlines from the pandemic-related declines of the past two years to forecast further registration losses for the fall, despite reason to believe school enrollments will stabilize. This model should be adjusted to eliminate the volatility that one-time events impose on school funding.  In other areas of city budgeting, we use a five-year rolling average. While many schools with increases in enrollment will eventually get more money next winter, that will be far too late for principals to plan and hire for the fall.

“Finally, as the Chancellor committed at the most recent PEP meeting, we should use this moment to more broadly assess the current Fair Student Funding (FSF) formula and make changes needed to ensure that it equitably and effectively provides funding for our students and schools. If we know the formula needs updating, we should not be using it to slash school budgets during some of the most challenging times.”