A budget agreement hammered out between Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council came with some unexpected news: a boost to education spending.
But even as certain programs on the chopping block were saved, the education department now faces a fiscal cliff that all but guarantees an even tougher fight over funding next year.
The Department of Education’s budget is $121 million higher than the agency spent this past year. However, according to the state comptroller, the department also faces a fiscal cliff of at least $730 million in federal stimulus funds that will dry up next year.
“The Department of Education saw a significant influx of federal [stimulus] aid. The challenge now is that the federal aid will be fully spent,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission. “With that running out, the city has to prioritize its critical programs.”
Initiatives including school-based mental health support and the popular Summer Rising program currently depend on the dwindling federal money.
“These are some really big programs,” Champeny said, adding that the department will have to closely review its spending over the next year to identify and preserve the services that have the most benefit.
Advocacy groups sounded the alarm about the fiscal cliff this spring as budget negotiations got underway. Citing the diminishing federal funds and economic uncertainty, Adams’ proposed budget called for shrinking education department spending by almost $1 billion.
But education advocates and members of the City Council said they won back funds for key programs including those that support more full-day pre-K seats, mental health counseling for students, outreach to immigrant families and the arts.
“New Yorkers spoke, we listened,” Adams said announcing the budget deal last week.
He also pledged to ensure all public schools received as much money or more than they did in their initial budgets, even if their enrollment is down – although he did not rule out midyear cuts.
Last year, enrollment-based cuts ignited a firestorm of criticism, along with protests and a lawsuit.
The total adopted education department budget is roughly $31.5 billion, compared to an estimated $31.4 billion spent last year. The city budget as a whole tops $107 billion.
“We took a step forward with this budget to restore funding for certain programs,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said last week.
The mayor said higher-than-expected revenues helped maintain funding for some programs. The state has also increased its education funding for the city.
“There is much more work to do but we appreciate the restoration of key programs that will allow students to continue receiving mental health services and for immigrant families to get information about their children’s schools at a time of growing need,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children of New York, which lobbied intensely for those programs.
But budget watchdogs note that the education department is expected to use up all of the remaining federal stimulus dollars in the coming year.
According to the May report from the state comptroller, federal stimulus funding for local education programs include $92 million set aside for 3-K expansion, $176 million for Summer Rising and $85 million for mental health programs. Even dyslexia screening, which the mayor, who is dyslexic, has touted as one of his top priorities, uses federal funding.
In response to the shortfall, the mayor has said he plans to scale back expansion of 3-K and redistribute seats instead.
Schools Chancellor David Banks testified before the City Council in May that the agency does not yet know how it will pay for some of the federally supported programs, like Summer Rising, going forward.
“This is a challenge,” Banks testified.
Members of the City Council have traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby federal lawmakers for more funds.
“The need for these programs is not going away when this funding expires,” Levine said. “We need elected officials to step up now to develop a plan to sustain these programs.”
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