Department of Education budget is set to shrink by nearly $1B under Mayor's proposal

The New York City Department of Education’s budget would shrink by almost $1 billion under the new financial plan proposed by Mayor Eric Adams earlier this week.

The mayor’s $107 billion executive budget envisions devoting roughly $30.6 billion to the education department in the next fiscal year, compared to the approximately $31.5 billion it expects to spend by the end of the current fiscal year.

Adams promised there would be “no service reductions, layoffs or cuts to school budgets” as a result of the reduction in education spending.

“We did not take a dime from our classrooms,” he said Wednesday.

However, the financial picture at schools will not be clear until they receive their individual budgets around June.

Last year, enrollment-based cuts ignited a firestorm of criticism, protests and a lawsuit.

Councilmembers claimed they were misled by the mayor’s office and later apologized for approving the spending plan.

This year, officials have promised to continue giving schools federal funding to partially offset any enrollment-based cuts, and an influx of migrant children from asylum-seeking families may also boost the rosters at many schools. But Schools Chancellor David Banks recently told councilmembers that schools may still see their individual budgets dip if enrollment has declined.

In terms of the overall education budget, more than a quarter of the roughly $959 million in reduced spending is attributed to the decline in federal funding. In response, the administration has already announced plans to scale back expansion plans for the city’s free 3-K program, arguing that it can enroll more 3-year-olds by better distributing available seats. The rest of the reduction in education spending, according to financial documents, comes largely from lower-than-anticipated healthcare costs and reductions from vacant positions.

For example, the budget shows a reduction in costs for school safety agents – although officials have said they still plan to increase the ranks of school safety officers, just not as much as had once been budgeted. There are also savings related to the end of the vaccine mandate for city workers.

As part of his executive budget, the mayor announced he wanted to add funding in a few areas, including maintaining the number of coordinators who help students in shelters connect with schools, and to launch a new climate education training program for teachers.

The release of the executive budget is the latest step in the so-called budget dance between the mayor and City Council as they hash out a spending plan for the city. The Council will now hold more hearings. The final budget is due by the end of June.

But councilmembers have already balked at some of the proposed cuts to education, especially plans to maintain the current number of 3-K slots rather than expand them as planned.

“This is a critical moment,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmember Justin Brannan, the chair of the finance committee, in a statement. “Our city’s future and continued economic recovery hinges on how we invest in New Yorkers and the essential services they rely on to succeed.”

Advocates have called for reinvesting any savings the administration has found back into the schools.

“We are concerned that the mayor is proposing to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from our City’s schools at a time when there are so many unmet needs,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York.

The headline on this story was updated to clarify the proposed budget changes. This story has also been corrected to reflect the accurate dollar amount of proposed cuts.