After years of consecutive budget cuts, the number of schools submitting pleas for extra funding just to meet basic operating expenses has more than tripled, The Post has learned.
This year nearly 400 schools filed appeals with the city — an alarm bell that a school doesn’t have enough funds to operate for the entire school year — compared to 121 schools in 2008, Department of Education data show.
Even though school budgets weren’t cut this year for the first time since 2007, principals said they were still left shortchanged because their costs — such as staff salaries — have increased.
They also said the city’s complex formula for funding schools was supposed to leave their budgets flat compared to last year, but instead it was a crapshoot that left them short on essentials.
“The budget is awful and I am dying a slow death,” said one Brooklyn elementary school principal, who pointed to a shortfall of more than $100,000 compared to last year that he needs for supplies and staffing.
“This has been the worst of all years when the money was supposed to stay the same,” he added.
DOE officials said they have released an additional $38 million to 220 of the schools this year in response to the requests — compared to $16 million in 2008.
They said this year’s appeal numbers were on par with last year’s, but could not provide the 2011 figures when asked.
Principals said their budget woes only got worse last week when the DOE yanked federal funds from their budget accounts without warning — shorting them a total of $14 million.
Schools saw an average of 2.4 percent of their funds removed from their budgets overnight — even though the money was already earmarked for expenses.
“The problem is they took the money and then told us about it later,” said Council of School Supervisors and Administrators vice president Mark Cannizzaro. “There should have been a conversation.”
Education officials said the money was transferred to schools in the bottom 10 percent of the city, something allowed under a federal waiver.
Adding to the budget wrangling, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott was forced to approve an “emergency declaration” to keep money flowing to schools earlier this month after an education panel vote on the annual budget was postponed.
Walcott attributed the postponement to the illness of key budget personnel, but the declaration also noted an “unforeseen delay in completing and approving school-level budgets.”
A DOE spokeswoman said the delay was not caused by the high number of budget appeals, but refused to provide an alternative explanation.
The panel is scheduled to vote on the annual budget next month.
Additional reporting by
Sally Goldenberg