Eric Adams defends shrinking NYC school budgets by $215M

Mayor Eric Adams insisted on Monday that his decision to shrink New York City public school budgets by $215 million due to lower enrollment doesn’t count as a “cut.”

“This is not a cut and people should be honest,” Adams said during an appearance on Fox 5’s Good Day New York. “Some people who are talking about this are being disingenuous. This is not a cut.”

Teachers and advocates have pushed back against shrunken allocations, which tie school budgets across the city to enrollment for the first time since the🌊 COVID-19 pandemic.

A series of rallies were held Monday at local schools and another for Monday evening outside City Hall ahead of th🌜e municipal budget vote.

The City Council is expecte🃏d to green light the contro🌳versial plan when members vote on the budget.

A handshake deal on Friday confirmed that the blow to individual s𝓀chool budgets was anticipated to go through, even though the line item had been a sticking point between Adams and the council in the final week of negotiations.

“We did not cut the budget for public schools,” said Adams. “We reallocated the money based on the student population.”

“Nothing is more dysfunctional than paying for something that when you decrease the numbers, you have to readjust based on the number of students you have,” he added.

City public schools have lost some 120,000 students over the last five years, according to the Department of Education.

During the coronavirus pandemic, however, the city paused tying individual school budgets to enrollment and used COVID relief funds to help fill in gaps. But since those federal funds are drying up, the administration proposed going back to adjusting budgets based on the amount of students in each school.

The initial cuts this budget season totaled $375 million, but to soften the shock, some of that loss was backfilled with $160 million in federal cash, The Post haᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs reported. The city will use $80 million from the American Rescue Plan to pad school b𒉰udgets in 2023.

The mayor noted that if enrollment numbers go up, “we’re going to put more money into the student population, into the schools, appropriately.”

He said that dollars sent to schools serving kids struggling♋ on state tests, learning English or those with disabilities, will be maintained at 100%.

Meanwhile, teachers and families in Brooklyn made a last-ditch attempt to delay the City Council vote at a protest Monday morning attended by Adams’ predecessor Bill de Blasio.

The former mayor-turned-congressional candidate, who has previously touted his gooꦕd relationship with Adams, joined protesters at P.S. 58 The Carroll School 🍒in Carroll Gardens.

Asked about de Blasio’s appearance, City Hall reiterated its commitment to “fully funding our schools.” 

“Anyone saying otherwise is being disingenuous and is simply taking part in political theatre in an effort to get some clicks. New Yorkers deserve better than politicians playing the role of demagogues,” said Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Adams. 

At nearby M.S. 839 in Kensington, students held a morning walkout and chants like “hey hey ho ho budget cuts have got to go” could be .

“We need to have a full budget for our school. This is a budget cut, no matter what the mayor says,” said Oliver Cannell, a seventh grade teacher at the school, where a teacher-led rally was scheduled for Monday afternoon.

“As we are coming out of this year that has been so challenging for so many reasons, the prospect of losing faculty, of class sizes going up, of losing enrichment programs, is not acceptable for our community,” he added.

Advocates and principals have warned that🍷 teachers may have to be let go if the cuts go through.

They also warned that class sizes will increase, and🧔 that after-school programs in the arts and sports teams are at risk of cuts too.

City Council indicated Monday afternoon there would be no immediate changes to the handshake budg🃏et deal.&nbs꧅p;

“The change in school budgets released last week is th𝄹e result of one-time federal stimulus funds running out, causing the City to return to its existing school budget formula that it had suspended because of these pandemic-related federal funds,” said Speaker Adr𓄧ienne Adams, Education Committee Chair Rita Joseph, and Oversight and Investigations Chair Gale Brewer said.

Council members in the statement promised a joint oversight hearing with the Oversight and Investigations, and Education committees “to identify and scrutinize every dollar of federal stimulus received or expected to be received” that could fill the gaps of lost schools federal funding.

The meeting date was not made public. 

They also committed to pushing the DOE to use more of its upwards of $30-billion budget on its schools, and less on “bloated areas of its central operations.”

Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan and Sam Raskin.