New york city school construction authority budget avoids major cuts as albany restores critical capital funds
Published May 2011
After a five month struggle tied to the New York State budget process, the New York City School Construction Authority managed to maintain most of the original funding for its $11 billion, 2010-2014 five-year capital plan. The current plan allows the SCA to continue building on its recent successes, though not enough to fully meet the City’s demand for new school seats.
The final $11.1 billion budget, funded jointly by the State and the City, restores $1.75 billion that had been cut from the New York State budget in January. The restoration brings the 2010-2014 capital plan close to its original $11.3 billion funding level.
The SCA amends its five-year plan annually to adapt its program to changing needs in the school system as they evolve. SCA’s latest budget reduces the emphasis on new school construction while slightly augmenting support for the replacement and upkeep of existing infrastructure.
In 2010, the SCA dedicated 45% – or $5.2 billion – of its five-year budget to increasing capacity, planning for a total of 30,000 new seats. This year SCA is dedicating 41% – or $4.6 billion – of its budget to new capacity, including the creation of 26,500 new seats.
The 2011 capital plan also devotes $6.3 billion to upgrades at existing buildings, up from $6.1 billion in 2010. This allows the SCA to undertake such projects as faade and roof renovations, boiler replacements, technology enhancements, and school reconfigurations.
The SCA’s budget process this year was particularly revealing, as it provides a stark representation of the actual scope of SCA’s capital needs and the precariousness of its funding.
The SCA released an early draft of its 2011 budget in November, in which it proposed spending more than $16 billion. The November proposal cited a need for an additional 20,000 new seats, over and above the 30,000 seats already included in the five-year plan.
The November budget also proposed increasing technology investments by $1 billion, indicating the importance the Department of Education is placing on creating what it describes as “state-of-the-art learning environments.”
In February, after Governor Andrew Cuomo released his initial State budget, the SCA was forced to issue a revised $9.3 billion five-year spending plan. In this proposal, the SCA cut the number of new seats to 14,000 36,000 fewer than the need identified in the November budget.
Notably, in the final budget agreement reached on April 1, the Governor and the State Legislature built in a firm funding commitment for school operating aid for two years instead of one, but did not make the same commitment to capital spending, which is not assured beyond the coming fiscal year.
The current five-year plan follows the historic 2005-2009 plan, which spent more than $13 billion to create 55,000 new school seats, and restore and reconfigure existing school facilities that transformed the City’s education infrastructure.
The bottom line is that, while much of the original funding is restored, not all of the Department’s infrastructure needs are being met. It would take several billion dollars to add the twenty thousand additional seats that the SCA announced it needed in November. In addition, the SCA has reported that, despite meeting its most urgent maintenance needs, there remains a backlog that would cost several billion additional dollars to address.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Contact Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and remind them that the New York City Schools capital budget must be sustained over the long term to meet the unmet need for new school seats and to maintain a quality learning environment for the City’s more than one million public school students.