It was Ms. Quinn’s first specific pronouncement on education spending since the mayor proposed balancing the books by eliminating 6,100 of the city’s 75,000 teaching positions through layoffs and retirements, and it sent a clear signal that big differences remain between the City Council and City Hall when it comes to bridging the city’s multibillion-dollar budget gap.
Her plan, drafted with Councilman Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee, includes cuts in the department’s technology and transportation spending and to its public information and legal staffs. It also suggests reducing the number of people assigned to the Office of Family Information and Action, which has been roundly criticized over its handling of elections for parent representatives in citywide councils, which play a role in school rezoning, construction and budget decisions.
“We’re not just saying no,” Ms. Quinn said in an interview. “We’re saying, ‘No to layoffs, and here are our suggestions.’ ”
Ms. Quinn’s office released her suggested cuts as the schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, appeared at a City Council budget hearing to defend his department’s spending decisions and affirm the need for teacher layoffs.
Her proposal drew guarded optimism from parents at a raucous rally that preceded the hearing, and measured support from labor leaders. Ernest A. Logan, president of the principals’ union, called it “a fine start that should be further examined and pursued.” The president of the teachers’ union, Michael Mulgrew, said, “That shows us clearly that there’s money to be saved at the Department of Education.”
But Bloomberg administration officials said it was not so simple. For example, they said, the Education Department is legally obliged to pay for certain things in areas where Ms. Quinn has suggested cuts, like the $10 million it must set aside to cover legal fees incurred by parents who successfully sue the city to provide their special-needs children with services in private schools. Ms. Quinn’s plan calls for $3 million in cuts to the department’s legal office.
Ms. Quinn also proposed a 1 percent reduction to the department’s transportation budget of $1.5 billion; one official pointed out that last year’s cuts to bus services prompted a lawsuit that includes four Council members among the plaintiffs. Regarding Ms. Quinn’s suggestion that $2 million could be saved by dismissing 10 school district superintendents, the official pointed out that the department was required by law to employ all but about five of the superintendents on its payroll.
The smallest of Ms. Quinn’s proposed cuts, totaling $280,000, would eliminate 3 of the 13 positions in the Education Department’s press office. The largest, of $35 million, would be achieved by reducing expenses for special-education and prekindergarten services, among others.
Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that it would be “fiscally imprudent to adjust projected spending on mandated services” like special education, given that the city could run out of money to cover those costs by midyear. But a City Council aide said that in such a situation the department could ask for a midyear budget adjustment.
Mr. Walcott said he could not discuss Ms. Quinn’s proposal because he had not studied it. “I was handed a piece of paper while I was at the table testifying,” he said, “and I’m not going to be rude to the Council members to read something while they’re asking me questions.”
The City Council must pass a budget by June 30. While the $75 million in alternate cuts that Ms. Quinn proposed are only a small fraction of what is needed to avoid any cuts to the city’s teaching staff, it is “a step in the right direction,” she said.
Ms. Quinn vowed to scrutinize other agencies’ budgets to come up with additional savings, but did not make the promise that many parents and teachers had been hoping she would make: to pass a budget that would not include reductions to the teaching corps.
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