Budget Alert
April 24, 2003: New Contingency cuts to the Public Schools

The Mayor's Executive Budget, released last week, contains a $1 billion "contingency program" of new cuts to municipal agencies if the state fails to provide the city with additional funding. The Department of Education's share of these cuts is surprisingly small, $120 million or 12%.

This is the running total of projected city budget cuts for the 2003-04 school year (which does not include state cuts, reoccurring cuts from previous years, such as the $180 million to school districts, and self-imposed savings plans):

$200 million (November)
$131 million (January)
$178 million (February, if no savings from unions)
$120 million (April, new contingency cuts, if no extra state funds)
-------------------------------------------------------------
$629 million total

The good news
The new Maintenance of Effort law (MOE) has kicked in. The city can only reduce its funding for schools by the same percentage that its own revenues have declined. In previous rounds of municipal budget cuts for FY 04, the schools' share ranged from 26% to 29%.

The bad news
When the previous contingency cuts of $178 million were announced in February, no details were given on how the Department of Education would absorb them if unions did not come up with a city-wide savings target of $600 million. The Executive Budget provides details on both the February cuts and the April contingency program. They seem designed to get the attention of unions and parents through laying off a large number of low-wage workers (aides and paraprofessionals), reductions in school supply money, and the elimination of extra summer and after-school programs affecting students. (See below for details or go directly to www.NYC.gov and do an agency search for Management & Budget to get to the OMB web page where you can download in pdf format sections of the Executive Budget. The ones that are the most helpful are the Budget Summary and Summary of Reduction Programs.)

The very bad news
City budget officials assert that the MOE only applies to the city budget adopted at the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1) and that the Mayor has the latitude to further reduce funding to the schools in subsequent modifications of the city budget. EPP does not know whether this opinion is shared by state lawmakers, who provided the Mayor with control of the Board of Education in exchange for the city's maintaining its fiscal effort for public schools.

Note on state cuts to education:
Despite announcements in the press about restorations to New York City public schools, we are in a waiting period. EPP has learned that the education portion of the Assembly-Senate budget will come to the floor of both houses on Monday, April 21 for a vote. Staffers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle indicate that $275 million in funding to pay for the 2002 UFT collective bargaining contract will be repeated for a second time. It is not considered part of state school aid. Both sides have also hinted that a full restoration of the remaining $478 million in the Governor's cuts to New York City schools may not be possible. The extent of restorations will depend on whether there is an agreement on new taxes and new budget gimmicks. It is expected that the Governor will veto this budget (or most sections of it), so the drama will be if there are sufficient votes in both houses to override a veto. This may not be the end of the drama. When revenues decline, budget changes can occur in the fall through a special session of the legislature.

Details: The description of the following cuts are for the $178 million announced in February and the new contingency cuts of $120 million announced this April. For a fuller list of all planned cuts, go to the OMB web site.

A. Layoffs

Almost all of them appear to be part-time workers with an average net savings in the range of $15,000 per staff member after the costs of unemployment insurance benefits are factored in. Therefore, 67 part-time positions have to be eliminated for every $1 million in savings. Since there is an attrition rate (people retiring or quitting) for these job categories, some of the individuals receiving lay-off notices will be able to be reassigned immediately or within a few months. OMB uses full-time equivalent positions (FTE) to quantify job eliminations. Over the years, several internal management studies have concluded that there is overstaffing in some aide and paraprofessional classifications. EPP parent organizations are concerned about school safety issues when fewer adults are in the building during the school day. Aides are especially critical because they remain outside of the classroom during the school day. The job cuts may be aimed at exerting pressure on the DC 37 and UFT unions.

$30 million
Elimination of 194 out of 4,000 elementary and middle school paraprofessional positions and 670 out of 900 high school general education paraprofessional positions. No early-grade or special education paraprofessionals are included in this round of layoffs.

$23 million
Elimination of 767 out of 8,100 school aide positions, whose duties include hall and play-yard monitoring and handling of supplies.

$12 million
Elimination of 327 of 1500 family paraprofessional positions. Some of these duties will be assumed by the newly created parent coordinator positions.

$11 million
Elimination of 300 out of 5,000 school lunch worker positions.

$9 million
Elimination of 70 out of 600 Substance Abuse Prevention Intervention Specialist positions (called SAPIS workers).

$6 million
Reductions in custodial helper positions through changes in allocations to custodians and reduction of after-school programs. No layoff figures are given because, technically, these are not employees of the DOE.

New contingency job cuts:
$25 million
Elimination of an additional 815 school aide positions out of the remaining 7333 positions.

B. Reductions in programs for students

These cuts impact children, but they also reduce overtime for teachers (called per-session pay). In EPP's survey of the nature of education-related constituency contact with the neighborhood offices of members of the Black, Puerto Rican & Hispanic Legislative Caucus, the most frequent program-related inquiry was about after-school. Working parents, in particular, seek out these programs. Their quality, however, can vary. Unfortunately, some schools have shifted many of their untested subjects (like physical education and art) to their after-school program. The impact on students of reductions in summer school programs is more difficult to evaluate. The six-to-eight-week program consists mostly of test preparation with highly-scripted instruction. Research in other cities seems to indicate that there are no long-term benefits from summer school for at-risk students. On the other hand, many research studies also show that low-income children tend to lose ground over the summer months.

$17 million
Reduction of contracts with CBO's for after-school programs.

$13 million
Elimination of non-mandated summer school for 29,500 students (these children will be promoted to the next grade, but need extra academic help).

New contingency program cuts:
$70 million
Elimination of all after-school educational programs.

$26 million
Elimination of summer school for 42,321 early-grade students who are not tested, but whose teachers have judged them as in need of extra academic help. Within this figure is a $6 million reduction in administrative costs, including transportation, planning, and assessments.

C. Other cuts

Many of them seemed to be targeted to cutting programs that are popular with teachers.

$35 million
Reduction in the number of sabbaticals granted.

$16 million
Elimination of Teachers' and Principals Choice'. In many schools this is the major source of funding for paper supplies. These costs will be shifted to parents and teachers. Given the importance of supplies at the school level, it is disheartening that these programs are repeatedly chosen for the chopping block.

$9 million
Reduction in central administration allocations.

End note. Two EPP member organizations have reported that in recent meetings with City Councilmembers, there have been denials that their Fiscal 2004 Preliminary Budget Response includes additional cuts to the Board of Education and meager restorations. Judge for yourself by going to www.council.nyc.ny.us clicking on the link "Reports" and downloading Part V (see pages 8 to 11) and Part I (see pages 18 to 27).