Last month, Mayor Eric Adams released New York City’s preliminary budget for FY2023, the first of his new administration. Nearly half of the spending cuts come at the expense of the Department of Education’s budget, which is proposed to be $30.7 billion, about $1 billion down from FY2022. Much of this, however, is a result of decreased aid from the federal and state governments, and City spending on schools would actually increase by 3%.
Still, the DOE is facing cuts at a crucial time for the roughly one million students that make up New York City’s public school system, and we know that decreased resources can mean a reduction in services for already-vulnerable populations like low-income students, students with disabilities, English language learners, and more. We took a closer look at the proposed budget to see how, if at all, New York’s students with disabilities would be impacted by these cuts.
Decreased Enrollment, Decreased Funding
The Mayor plans to phase in $375 million in funding cuts to public schools facing declining enrollment over the next three years, softening the blow to schools by backfilling the cuts with stimulus funds.
The cuts could mean increased crowding in classrooms, heightened strain on staff, and fewer resources to support kids with additional needs, which fund services such as after school programs and reading interventions.
Hiring Freezes
The Adams administration would like to trim city payroll by eliminating vacant positions across agencies, and the DOE is no different. The city would eliminate roughly 3,600 positions in the education department, 95% of which are classified as “pedagogical” positions, the city’s term for teachers, administrators, and counselors.
Adams has stressed that, as with other agencies, the cutbacks will simply come as a result of the elimination of current vacancies.
Little Change to Child Care and Early Education
In the 2019-20 school year, approximately a third of all preschoolers with disabilities — more than 10,000 students — did not receive all of their mandated services. The Adams administration, in turn, is proposing to increase its investment in universal pre-K by about $30 million.
While child care spending will remain the same, Adams wants to offer businesses who retrofit their property to create free or subsidized child care space a property tax abatement worth $25 million total in FY23. However, the budget doesn’t address the city’s lack of affordable infant and toddler care, as well as the lack of extended-day/year seats in 3K and universal pre-K programs.
Improved Student Transportation?
Parents have long been agitating for improvements in the busing services that many students rely on to get to school. This budget seems to deliver in this area, citing a $134 million proposed raise in funding for general education busing.
However, this elides the $128 million in proposed cuts to special education busing, which makes the overall investment seem much more frugal. It is unclear how these reallocations will impact the transportation services that students with disabilities receive, but we will continue monitoring this item.
Increased Pay for Special Education Staff
The budget allocates $252 million in increased funding for special education and preschool special education. This is largely a response to increased cost of living in New York and will go toward educator salaries, not the expansion of programmatic services.
