NYC Public School Parents: Hearings and my testimony on the DOE's woefully inadequate preliminary capital budget

NYC Public School Parents: Hearings and my testimony on the DOE's woefully inadequate preliminary capital budget:

Hearings and my testimony on the DOE's woefully inadequate preliminary capital budget

by Leonie Haimson

The NY City Council Education Committee held hearings on the Mayor’s Fiscal 2013 Preliminary Capital Budgeton March 26, 2012 at 250 Broadway. Education Chair Robert Jackson called the meeting to order at 10 am and read opening testimony, focused on how there are only 38,000 seats in the plan, though the DOE admits the need for 50,000 [actually the need is much higher, see my testimony here and below].  He also pointed out that the DOE was unable to spend many of the millions that were allocated to Verizon for technology upgrades, due to legal wrangling.  [Perhaps they are arguing over the fact that Verizon still hasn’t paid them back from the money they embezzled a few years back.]

Instead of investing the unspent funds into badly needed new seats, DOE instead shifted them into technology spending in future years.  Jackson also criticized the slow pace [10 years!] of the DOE’s plan to replace hundreds of PCB-leaking lights. As you can see from the below, many of the Council Members were justifiably aggravated about the severe overcrowding, Kindergarten waiting lists, the charter co-locations, PCBs, the fact they can't spend their capital allocations on Kindles[!], and other relevant failures of a capital plan that is woefully underfunded and has misplaced priorities.

Witnesses included DOE/SCA Panel: Kathleen Grimm (Deputy Chancellor of Operations, DOE) and Lorraine '