Chalkbeat NY reports that Mayor Eric Adams (whose campaign was heavily funded by charter-loving billionaires) intends to cut $960 million from the budget for the city’s public schools.
The city’s education department budget would drop by nearly $960 million next school year under a more detailed budget proposal released by Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, though city officials did not offer specifics about the impact on individual campuses.
Two-thirds of that cut, or $652 million, is the result of Adams’ decision to reduce the city’s contribution to the education department. Another $297 million is from a drop in federal funding, which is drying up as pandemic relief programs end.
Part of the city’s cut is tied to a mandate from the mayor earlier this month calling on city agencies to cut spending, including at the education department. That raised questions about whether schools would take a hit, but on Wednesday, Adams vowed that this specific cost-saving measure “will not take a dime from classrooms.”
Instead, that reduction — totaling $325 million — will largely come from recalculations on how much the city spends in fringe benefits, such as health insurance for teachers. (Officials emphasized this would not result in a loss of benefits or other services.)
“We had to make tough choices in this budget,” Adams said Wednesday. “We had to negotiate competing needs. We realize that not everyone will be happy but that is okay because that is how you get stuff done.”
The education department’s operating budget would total about $30.5 billion next year under the mayor’s plan, down by about 3%.
Note that a large part of the savings will be funded by changes (cuts) in teachers’ health insurance.
Since the city will soon have to comply with a state law requiring class size reduction, it’s not clear how the city will pay for the additional costs of smaller classes. It is a very valuable reform, but it’s costly.
The city will also bear the cost of 14 new charters. Currently the 275 charters in the city are a heavy expense, since the city must pay their rent, even if they locate in private space. In some cases, such as Success Academy, the charter owns the space and still charges the city exorbitant rent.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The small public school district where I taught (about 1,000 teachers and 19,000 students) for thirty years in Southern California changed health providers too many times to remember, always to a lower bidder that promised the district they’d get the health care costs down.
When I retired at 60, in 2005, the district was offered COBRA at $1,500 a month until I was eligible for medicare. I couldn’t afford it and left without health care.
There’s more than 1,000 public school districts in California and most of them do not include health care with retirement, no matter how long you teach and I know teachers that taught more than 40 years. The only district I’ve heard that offers health care for retirement is LA Unified… negotiated by the teachers union.
This is where I get off topic a bit (it’s still about health care though):
A few months after I retired from teaching, I learned that because I’d served in the Marines and fought in Vietnam I was eligible for health care through the VA. I applied, went through the vetting process and was accepted… with no copays and no cost for prescriptions. The VA even pays for my orthotic walking shoes with a limit of two a year. I don’t qualify for dental though. Only vets with 100% service related disabilities get the dental.
Last December, when a VA advice nurse told me I had to go to an ER at a private hospital near me that was approved by the VA as a partner, he said I would not pay a penny.
When I had a sliver stuck in one of my eyes several years ago scratching my eye every time I blinked, I ended up at the VA hospital in Palo Alto near Stanford. Stanford’s hospital and doctors are also VA approved partners. The VA called in a Stanford eye specialist to get that sliver out and treat my eye for the damage the sliver did. I was told none of the VA doctors were qualified.
The VA has been my health provider since I retired. Since I had health care during my thirty years as a teacher, I have several comparisons, and think the VA is a lot better than the health care that district provided for its teachers and support staff.
Do not believe everything you hear about the VA not doing a good job providing health care – While a few complaints might be justified, most of the complaints are just more lies, due to politics since the extreme right wants to destory every part of the public sector and privatize everything so someone can profit from public dollars.
I think the VA is doing just find and I prefer it over the for profit, private health care system, and Medicare… anytime.
At the VA, there is no bean counting, desk jockey working at an health insurance company telling my doctors what they can or can’t do with their patients.
Lloyd, the House Republicans just passed a budget that cuts VA health care by 22%. More about that Sunday.
The underfunded VA has been unfairly criticized.
The tRumpian effort to privatize the rest of the VA, as well as traditional Medicare via ACO REACH, has been expanding under the Biden administration.
Health care is a human right for everyone.
Advanced nation that treat health care as a human right have far better outcomes than the barbaric, profiteering U.S.
“greed care” system.
We can only dream about it here in the United States, where we rank 37th in health care outcomes and President Joe Biden promised to veto any Medicare For All bill if it came across his desk.
Good news for AHIP CEO’s and shareholders, off to the bankruptcy court for any unfortunate worker bee who gets a cancer diagnosis.
Huh. https://truthout.org/articles/mayor-eric-adams-is-siphoning-funds-from-public-schools-to-fortify-nypd/
Certainly no fan of Adams or Charters but the Cities finances have to be in a world of hurt with remote work impacting several sectors of the Cities economy from Commercial Real estate to retail in the Business hubs . Thus its tax revenue is way down.
Another reason that those “great union healthcare plans ” Tim Ryan ranted about at the debates were only as great as being able to keep them and that M4All was the answer.
Llyod is actually on Americas socialized healthcare experiment the VA. As in the UK where my daughter lives always the target of de funding by the Right.
Correct. It’s not a great outlook.
Adams, Bloomberg, Giuliani, Koch… NYC picks outs some pretty pungent mayors sometimes.
What is more interesting is the response to the Mayors you did not mention. In 1992 & 93 when Dinkins was in office violent Crime started going down dramatically before Giuliani came to office. deBlasio’s term from 14-19 was the
safest the City had ever been. You would not know it from the headlines or peoples reaction to him even before the pandemic spike.
Dinkins dramatically increased the size of the NYPD.
Single-Payer health care and the shuttering of parasitic charter schools could go a long way toward providing needed education funding, not just in NYC alone.