CITY BUDGET INFO

EPP ALERTS
2004

Subj:   
EPP Details on Adopted FY 05 City Budget

Date: 7/1/2004
From: EPP NYC
 
From Noreen Connell, Educational Priorities Panel

Here are the additional resources for the public school system that resulted from negotiations between the City Council and the Mayor:

CLASS SIZE REDUCTION…An additional $10 million
In the Mayor’s Executive Budget proposal, $25 million had been earmarked to keep classes for third graders at the same size to cope with the larger cohort of third graders in the 2004-05 school year. Because of the Mayor’s grade retention policy, there may be anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 third graders who will be forced to repeat the third grade.

In the adopted budget, as outlined in the City Council summary, only $14.7 million will go to hire additional teachers for the third grade. $10.3 million of the remaining earmarked funds will be matched by $10 million from the City Council to be used to reduce class sizes from kindergarten to third grade. It should be noted that all these estimates may change by the beginning of the school year. The exact number of students who will be forced to repeat the third grade will only be known after Level 1 students attending summer school are re-tested. Both the Dept. of Education and the NYC Council prefer to describe this as a $35 million program.

TEACHERS CHOICE…An additional $16 million

This program provides funding for teacher supplies. The NYC Council was able to restore funding for teachers' Choice for the 2003-04 school year and did so again for the 2004-05 school year. Apparently, this has become another one of these ritualistic, year-by-year battles similar to cutbacks and restorations
of library hours.

SCIENCE TEACHERS…An additional $1.340 million

A consortium of museums & zoos, headed up by the American Museum of Natural History, will get these funds to provide extensive professional development for science teachers and field trips, resource kits, and supplies for participating schools.

AIDP …An additional $1.340 million
Schools that have lost their state funding for Attendance Improvement and Dropout Prevention programs (because the programs succeeded) will be able to continue services.

CSA PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP CENTER…An additional $157 thousand

Increases City Council support for this professional development center for principals, AP’s, and other school supervisors. The $13.1 capital budget has been approved with no substantial changes other than those already made public a few months ago (that is the increase in the number of schools to 90). The Council, instead, focused on getting more details in the capital plan and on an annual amendment process. As of today July 1, 12pm, no written MOU (memorandum of understanding) has been finalized and signed.

(Last updated 07/07/04)

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