Our critique of the DOE preliminary budget & the capital plan & what should be done instead

March 17, 2023

Hearings were held on Wed. before the Education committee of the City Council on the DOE preliminary budget and the Feb. amendment to the capital plan.  During the hearings, the DOE admitted that they plan to cut school budgets even more next year, though they wouldn’t say by how much.  Instead, the Council should insist on restoring the savage cuts made this year to school budgets  and prevent any additional ones.

During the hearings, Deputy Chancellor Weisberg also claimed that it would cost between $30 billion and $35 billion to build enough seats to comply with the new class size law, which would allow for the creation of about 200,000 more seats.

Yet currently, they propose to fund only 32,000 seats, while cutting 21,000 seats from the capital plan adopted in June 2021.  For more on the mind boggling contradictions in their statements and plans, and what we think needs to happen instead, see the Class Size Matters testimony here and below.

We have a draft reso for CECs and other groups to consider that instead urges the Council and the PEP to reject any budget that doesn’t restore the egregious cuts made to school budgets this year and expands the capital plan to provide additional space for smaller classes, as required by the new class size law.