The Big Apple’s beleaguered Department of Education quietly got even more money in this year’s massive $126 billion budget — pushing public school funding to nearly a third of all planned city spending.
City documents show the DOE got $680 million more for its fiscal year 2027 budget than what Mayor Zohran Mamdani originally proposed earlier this year.
That brings the DOE’s budget to an eye-watering $38.6 billion — an increase of almost $4 billion from last year, according to docs released without fanfare detailing the city’s adopted spending plan.
The funding spike comes despite the school system’s continued declines in enrollment — and a vow from Mamdani to get contract spending at the agency under control.
Some of the under-the-radar adds to the DOE budget included:
- At least $400 million to keep funding flat in schools where enrollment is down.
- About $100 million in school cleaning costs that were left off of Mamdani’s executive budget proposal.
- Some $42 million from City Council additions, including for social and emotional support programs, as well as art activities.
“Not only is budgeting to pay for students that don’t exist unfair, it means you miss the opportunity to spend those dollars on programs to help New Yorkers … or building reserves that help New Yorkers weather a rainy day,” said Andrew Rein, the head of the fiscally conservative group, Citizens Budget Commission.
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New York City already spends 50% more per student than the other largest urban school districts in the country: Los Angeles and Chicago, according to federal data.
The spending hasn’t necessarily yielded better results, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The so-called “Nation’s Report Card” found that only a third of fourth-grade students were rated “proficient” in math and only 28% were proficient in reading.
For eighth graders, 23% of city students were proficient in math and 29% in reading.
The city’s ever-increasing education spending also comes as fewer and fewer students are actually in classrooms, with the latest projections showing the system losing another 153,000 over the next decade.
There are currently 780,000 students enrolled in the nation’s largest public school district — averaging a cost of about $49,500 per pupil, based on the new DOE budget figures.
Students skipping class is also a major problem, with nearly 35% — or 300,000 kids — considered chronically absent in recent years.
Mamdani told The Post shortly after 2025’s mayoral election that he would cut the DOE budget by getting out-of-control spending on contracts and consultants in check.
“When you look at the DOE with a $40 billion budget, about $10 billion goes to contracts and consultants, some of those are for incredibly important things, and some of that spending is also spending that can be reduced when you take a real look at the duplicative processes,” he said during the SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico on Nov. 6.
“We have to always ensure that every dollar of that budget is being spent effectively.”
Whether Mamdani would effectively spend taxpayers’ money on education remained an open question even after City Council lawmakers approved his first budget on June 29.
City officials slow-walked releasing the documents providing nitty-gritty details on the FY2027 budget until late last week, leaving the massive education funding boost effectively unreported for days.
It’s also unclear if the Council was aware of the added half-billion dollars in the DOE budget.
The last-minute scramble to get the mayor’s first budget through rankled Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike with a handful of funding streams pulled at the 11th hour.
A major point of contention for Republicans was Mamdani’s walking back of the promise of 580 new cops, who were supposed to ease the demand for boots on the street so the force could get officers in de-escalation training quicker.
The political maneuver — which was dropped on Speaker Julie Menin late Monday night after the budget had been given the green light on both sides — allowed the mayor to get the overwhelming support from the progressive caucus and his Democratic Socialists of America comrades, who previously rallied against the addition.
The concession to the lefties was believed to be a compromise after the mayor and speaker cut a deal to severely curtail the spending in any housing voucher expansion.
Mamdani’s final budget shows he cut $29 million from the NYPD budget — despite publicly defending the boost in police officer numbers just two weeks earlier.
Bronx Councilwoman Althea Stevens, the lone Dem to vote down the budget, railed against the massive budget for a different reason.
“Equity cannot simply be a word we use in speeches or campaign slogans. Equity means directing resources where the needs are greatest,” she told The Post after griping that the Bronx did not get a fair share of funding.
Neither City Hall nor the DOE responded for comment Monday.
— Additional reporting by Matt Troutman
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