Class Size Matters’ exchange with School Construction Authority regarding their lax governance policies and non-compliant capital plan

UPDATED April 14, 2025
According to Twitter and the SCA website, the Mayor finally appointed Elizabeth Bergin as the third member of the SCA Board, after leaving the position vacant for almost two years. Bergin is the the Senior Vice President of Research, Evaluation and Strategy at the YMCA, and previously served as the SCA VP of Capital Plan Management until 2012.

March 26, 2025

On March 20, I spoke at the School Construction Authority board meeting, explaining how they have failed to fulfill their legal and ethical obligations to provide schools with the space necessary to comply with the class size law and the requirements of the Public Authorities Law.

Here and below are the comments that I shared at the meeting.

After I spoke, Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg responded dismissively, while the other SCA board member, Peter McCree, said nothing. Though the law requires three members at all times, there have only been two since August 2023, when Larraine Grillo resigned, as the NY Post reported back in September. [More on this here.] Nor did the President of the SCA, Nina Kubota, say anything.

SCA General Counsel Nadine Rivellese sent me a letter in response that is posted here and embedded below my comments at the meeting.  My reply letter is here, also embedded below.

Comments by Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters,  at SCA board meeting on March 20, 2025

While Cora Liu of the SCA testified  at the preliminary budget hearing on March 13  that 70,000 more school seats would be needed to comply with the class size law, passed by the State Legislature in June of 2022, there are only about 33,000 seats funded in the five-year capital plan and fewer than 20,000 are expected to be completed by September 2028,  the deadline in law.

According to the DOE, there are nearly 500 schools without the space currently lower class sizes to the mandated levels that enroll nearly half of all students, but no apparent plan on how they will be provided with the space to comply.

• Moreover, nearly half of all the new seats that are funded in the five-year plan are still unspecified as to district, subdistrict or grade level.  Under no previous administration has the SCA capital plan refused to specify where schools are planned by district and grade level. Not only is this lack of transparency unfortunate, given the need to accelerate school construction to meet the timeline in the class size law, but it also appears to violate two laws.

• First, the state class size law itself requires DOE to submit an “annual capital plan for school construction and leasing to show how many classrooms will be added in each year and in which schools and districts to achieve the class size targets”

• Second, the lack of transparency also violates Local Law 167, passed by the Council in 2018, requiring the SCA to explain where seats are needed by district, subdistrict and grade level, as well as the demographic data and methodology used to make these projections.  Yet Instead of becoming more transparent after this law was passed, the capital plan became even more opaque.

• We also have ongoing concerns with the School Construction Authority’s lax governance. As reported in the NY Post in September, the SCA Board has been comprised of only two members since August 2023, though three members are required at all times by the state law that established the SCA in 1998: “The authority shall be governed by and its powers shall be exercised by a board of trustees consisting of three members….Each appointed member shall continue in office until a successor has been appointed and qualifies.”
  

• According to the latest report of the NY State Authorities Budget Office, the SCA Board also lacks a Governance Committee, a Finance Committee, as well as official policies for salary and compensation, time and attendance. Nor does it have a Whistleblower Protection policy. According to this NYS Authorities Budget Office, all of these are required by the NYS Public Authorities Law.

We urge you to reform the Board’s structure  and policies according to the requirements in the law, and to revamp the capital plan, so that it clearly shows where and when school seats will be created to allow the city to meet the Sept. 2028 deadline in the class size  law. Thank you for listening;  I will email you a copy of these comments and hope for a point by point response.

SCA General Counsel letter, March 25, 2025

Class Size Matters response to the General Counsel’s letter, March 26, 2025

___________________________________________

March 26th, 2025

Dear Ms. Rivellese:

Thank you for your letter dated March 25, 2025, sent in response to the comments I made at the School Construction Authority board meeting on March 20, which I emailed to SCA board members later the same day.

I have some follow-up questions and concerns, first related to SCA governance issues:

• You write, “our Board of Trustees is comprised of three members.”  But then you appear to contradict that statement by saying, “We have been working closely with City Hall to ensure proper selection and vetting of our prospective third trustee member and should have an appointment to fill the current vacancy in the near future.”

If the Board has three members, please identify them. Only two are listed on the SCA website and were present at last week’s meeting.  The third member, Lorraine Grillo, resigned on Aug. 31, 2023, as reported by the NY Post last September and confirmed by your office.

That is more than 30 months ago, and one would think plenty of time for the Mayor to appoint a new member, especially as the  state law that established the SCA in 1998 requires three board members at all times: “The authority shall be governed by and its powers shall be exercised by a board of trustees consisting of three members….Each appointed member shall continue in office until a successor has been appointed and qualifies.”

• Please provide a link to your official policy for time and attendance, and your whistleblower policy, and/or attach the dated documents.  I also wonder why, if you have these policies already, you did not inform the NYS Authorities Budget Office of these facts, whose last two annual reports stated otherwise, including their report released in January 2025 and the other in January 2024.
• As to your salary policies, the fact that more than 50% of the SCA’s employees are governed by collective bargaining agreements does not cover all employees, and most likely omits the salaries of management, which would likely be the information most of interest in terms of ensuring good governance and why this policy is required by  the Public Authorities law.
• The fact that Governance and Finance topics go before the full board does not obviate a need for those committees, at least in the interpretation of the NYS Authorities Budget Office, which is tasked with interpreting that law.

But my greatest concerns relate to the continued lack of transparency in the capital plan.  I know of no capital plan under any other previous Mayor that was so opaque in terms of reporting where schools are funded and planned to be built.  In response to my point that nearly half of the seats funded in the February five-year plan are still unspecified as to district, subdistrict and grade level, you write:

“After the passing of the State Class Size law, we have adjusted our existing methodology to identify seat need as well as the framework of New Capacity program to support the NYCPS’ class size reduction plan. This adjustment is necessary as the class size mandate is not on a geographic area level but on individual school and class level.” 

If that is true, one would think that this would require more specificity about where schools are funded and needed, rather than less.

In fact, the state class size law does require enhanced specificity, as it says that NYC “shall prepare annual reports” including an “annual capital plan for school construction and leasing to show how many classrooms will be added in each year and in which schools and districts to achieve the class size targets.”

This level of specificity is also required by Local Law 167, approved by the NYC Council in 2018, that requires the SCA to explain where seats are needed by district, subdistrict and grade level, as well as the demographic data and methodology relied upon to make these projections.

As Cora Liu of the SCA testified before the City Council on March 13, 2025 that 70,000 more school seats will be needed to comply with the class size law, please provide the information as to these seats are located by district, subdistrict and grade level, as well as the data and methodology used to determine these figures, as these laws require.

Thank you for your time and attention to these important issues.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
phone: 917-435-9329
[email protected]
http://www.classsizematters.org/