Rollover Funds: DOE Compromises to 30 percent
Angry Principals Chastise Tweed
by Anne Silverstein
City lawmakers, union leaders and parents exploded in anger after Schools Chancellor Cathie Black announced in February that Principals had to return 50 percent of their yearend surpluses, which they planned to spend in the following school year.
After protests erupted at schools, and thousands of words were written on blogs and websites across the city, Ms. Black retreated a little; the percentage was lowered to 30 percent, as a result of “thoughtful
feedback” from Principals, said Ms. Black.
That decision did not satisfy CSA, Principals, a number of City Council members or many parents. CSA President Ernest Logan said, “The DOE holds Principals accountable for how schools perform. They should have trusted my members to
spend the money in an intelligent manner in their schools. The money belongs to those children.”
Each year until now, Principals have been allowed to “roll over” savings from their budgets to the following year. (Not all Principals can afford to do this.) The rules changed in February when, for the first time, the Chancellor told Principals either allocate the funds by March 18 or lose a percentage of it by the year’s end.
Principals were outspoken in their anger. Edward Tom, Principal of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, said, “This is a very disappointing day for the 1.1 million children and their families who have placed their trust in NYC’s public schools. It is particularly disappointing for Principals who bought into Mayor Bloomberg’s management philosophy that Principals are to be treated like CEOs of their schools with full fiscal autonomy and responsibility.”
Said Joseph J. Lisa, Principal of IS 61, Queens, “I am following the Mayor’s leadership of rolling over my surplus to offset future cuts. [Mr. Bloomberg] has established a goal of putting children first. Why would he tax them 30 percent and take away services from them?”
At the Bronx Center, Mr. Tom said, his School Leadership Team spent four agonizing weeks negotiating what to do; he had saved $250,000 to spend, in large part, on next year’s afterschool program. The school will roll over $200,000, losing $60,000 to Tweed, he said, to avoid program cuts.
CSA and school leaders have questioned what the DOE will do with the money. “The idea of moving funds further away from schools and classrooms where learning takes place seems contradictory,” said Mr. Tom.
“The only thing that is clear is that the [pullback] will result in approximately $24 million that will be redistributed to Tweed,” Mr. Tom said, or one-tenth of one percent of the DOE’s $20 billion operating budget.
“It was impossible for me to balance my budget and preserve afterschool programs in the face of NYS and NYC budget cuts to education without demonstrating fiscal restraint by rolling over funds into FY 2012 even at the heavy price that was imposed upon us by the DOE,” Mr. Tom concluded.
