Needy NYC Schools To Get $125M Funding Boost

NEW YORK CITY HALL — More than 850 New York City schools will see an extra $125 million starting next school year to pay for more teachers, counselors and other needed resources, city officials announced Wednesday. The annual boost in so-called Fair Student Funding will support hundreds of thousands of students who have struggled as the state has left them in the lurch, city officials said.

"We do not want to see some schools in some neighborhoods have what they need and other schools in other neighborhoods not have enough," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The additional money, spent at principals' discretion, will help needy schools across the five boroughs get at least 90 percent of the funds they need to adequately support their students, officials said. That's up from about 81 percent at the start of de Blasio's first term.

Each school will get a varying amount, but the money could help hire teachers, social workers, counselors and other staff or materials they're lacking, officials said.

Leadership and Public Service High School in Lower Manhattan currently gets 87 percent of its needed funding. The money pledged Thursday is a "game-changer" that will help pay for a full-time college counselor, more special education teachers, SAT preparation for students and training for teachers, principal Philip Santos said.

"Every dollar counts, and with every dollar we receive because of this investment we will create a more equitable school," Santos said.

De Blasio agreed to the boost after the City Council asked for an extra $250 million in its 2019 budget proposal, Speaker Corey Johnson said. The new commitment adds to $230 million annually the mayor has dedicated to Fair Student Funding, officials said.

The mayor framed the investment as a response to the state's continued failure to give city schools the money they need.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the mayor's nemesis — remains reluctant to give the city what it's owed from a roughly decade-old lawsuit that challenged how the state funded schools, de Blasio said. The state fell $1.2 billion short of its obligation this year, money that could help fully fund every school, city officials said.

"The state is putting less in when they owe us even more, but we keep doing all we can to make up the difference," de Blasio said.

The 2019 state budget passed late last month contains $10.5 billion in funding for New York City schools, an increase of nearly 3.3 percent from the current year.

Cuomo has argued throwing money at schools won't fix them, but better distribution of the money will. To that end, the budget contained legislation requiring the state's largest school districts to publish data showing much money each of their schools receives.

"New York City, for example, has 1,600 schools. Some are high-performing in wealthier neighborhoods, some are chronically failing in poorer neighborhoods," Cuomo said last month. "How much do we fund each school? How much do we fund each pupil? You don't know right now."

But de Blasio said Cuomo hasn't offered "any specific evidence" for his argument, which he called a "classic ... moderate Democrat formulation."

"Our teachers, our educators, our administrators are doing better and better all the time because they're finally getting resources," the mayor said.

The state says it doesn't owe the city any more money under the lawsuit de Blasio referenced, which was brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

State officials agreed to a $1.9 billion increase in school funding from "City, State and Federal sources" when the case was dismissed in 2006, said Morris Peters, a spokesman for the state Division of the Budget. Cuomo has increased aid to city schools by 42 percent since 2012, Peters said.

"(W)ith funding at a record high, the more important effort is ensuring transparency and equity in how that funding is distributed among schools, as Governor Cuomo accomplished in the State budget," Peters said in a statement.

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio announces new education funding at City Hall on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. Photo by Noah Manskar/Patch)