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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to win a two-year extension of mayoral control from state lawmakers as well as a delay in implementing the class size mandate as part of Albany’s final budget, according to multiple media reports Thursday.
Mamdani had been lobbying alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul for a four-year extension of the city’s school governance model — despite declaring his opposition to mayoral control on the campaign trail. Just before his inauguration, he walked back his views on mayoral control, though he still pledged to make the system more democratic and responsive to families and educators.
Lawmakers have often made tweaks to mayoral control when they’ve extended it over the past two decades. It’s not clear yet if or how lawmakers might change the governance structure that empowers the mayor to unilaterally appoint the schools chancellor, select a majority of the city’s school board, and generally set the policy direction of the nation’s largest school district.
Mayoral control is set to sunset on June 30.
Hochul suggested last week at a press conference that a two-year extension was on the table. State Sen. John Liu, of Queens, seemed to confirm the likely deal on mayoral control, which was first reported in Politico.
“A two year extension of mayoral control is the right thing to do, to give this new mayor a chance to deliver results for our public schools, and to pass it as part of the state budget given that there will remain less than two weeks of the legislative session once the budget is finally passed,” Liu said in a statement.
Liu, an architect of the class size law, also has said he’s open to changes to the mandate since Mamdani took office.
“The Mamdani administration also deserves an extended timeframe for reducing class sizes given that despite inheriting a difficult circumstance, the mayor steadfastly committed to achieving full compliance and has presented a clear plan towards that end,” Liu said.
While running for mayor, Mamdani vowed to support the state’s law to reduce the city’s class sizes. Though Mamdani voiced his continued commitment to shrinking classes, he supported changing the timeline from requiring all classes meet the caps of 20 to 25 students, depending on the grade, from the 2027-28 school year to the 2030-31 school year.
Though the state’s budget is delayed, with its 12th extension signed on Thursday, Mamdani previewed his executive budget earlier this week and already anticipated the state will approve a delay implementing the class size law.
Mamdani’s executive budget proposal released this week also anticipates changes to state law, that have not yet been made official, to save money that would have otherwise been spent next school year on class size reductions. His latest budget proposal included $122 million to hire 1,000 educators. That was down from the preliminary budget he unveiled in February that called for $543 million. Officials previously said they would need to hire 6,000 educators to comply with the law.
At the same time, his budget added $1.5 billion in capital funding for the School Construction Authority to help the city comply with the class size mandate.
“Make no mistake: We are fully committed to fulfilling the state mandate in a meaningful way on a realistic timeline that New Yorkers can actually trust,” Mamdani said on Tuesday.
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.
Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
