Letters 96
EPP June 1996 Letter on NYC Public School Facilities

June 13, 1996

Majority Speaker Sheldon Silver
New York State Assembly
Albany, NY 12248

Dear Majority Speaker Silver:

We write to you on an urgent matter for children attending New York City public schools. On behalf of the Educational Priorities Panel, I am writing to:

• Thank you for not agreeing to the Governor’s proposal to link emergency appropriations bills with a freeze on school aid which would also contain huge budget cuts and cost shifting in public education funding;

• To urge you to adopt the education budget provisions contained in the legislative agreement on the state budget, with adequate increased funding for the growth in New York City’s student population;

• To ask you to ensure that the initiative of the New York City Council and the Mayor to provide $1.4 billion for school repairs be approved only if there are safeguards that priorities for repairs will be set by objective standards of need and that these new funds will not supplant capital funds already budgeted for school repairs.

You have an unprecedented opportunity, during these difficult fiscal times, to make a significant improvement in the learning environment for children and the resources available for better instruction for our city’s students and future citizens.

Sincerely,
Noreen Connell, Executive Director

 

POLICY ON USE OF MATERIALS ON EPP WEB SITE: Individuals and organizations are free to reproduce and/or forward information contained on our web site without prior permission, but we ask that the Educational Priorities Panel be cited as the source of the information. For puposes of clarity, we recommend:
1) when reproducing pie charts and graphs, all the information that appears on them should also be reproduced and
2) when reproducing reports, footnotes should also be included.