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In Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s quest to trim spending from New York City’s massive municipal budget, there’s no bigger target than the Education Department.
The department’s nearly $45 billion budget is the largest of any agency by far, making up roughly a third of the city’s entire budget.
The city schools budget has even become a national talking point for critics of Mamdani. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said if he ran his company like New York City ran its schools, it would mean charging customers a $100 fee while taking six weeks to deliver a package.
Now, as Mamdani doubles down on his waste-trimming efforts with a new Commission on Government Efficiency, Chalkbeat wants to better understand what the Education Department’s massive budget looks like to the people working in and attending the system every day, and where you see the biggest potential savings.
The size and complexity of the budget is difficult to comprehend. It covers everything from staff and supplies at roughly 1,600 district schools as well as the educations of hundreds of thousands of students in charter and private schools and childcare centers. It spends billions on transportation, food, and maintenance.
So far, Mamdani’s biggest cost-cutting plan for the Education Department comes from hundreds of millions in expected savings from delayed implementation of the state’s class size law. He’s also pledged to trim spending on students with disabilities attending private schools. City officials are counting on $100 million in savings from “improved financial controls” and tens of millions more from consolidating or eliminating unnecessary contracts, according to budget documents.
Chalkbeat wants to hear from you, since where you see the biggest spending inefficiencies could look very different depending on your role in the system.
For parents and students, what are the programs and materials at your school that feel least useful? For teachers and school staff, are boxes of new textbooks or laptops gathering dust? For administrators, are there projects, materials or contracts whose costs seem too high? And if you’re involved in larger contracts or spending decisions, are there instances where the city is paying for duplicate services, or contracting out tasks it could do in-house for cheaper?
By getting a ground-level view of Education Department spending, Chalkbeat hopes to help create a clearer picture of where the city’s money goes, and we need your help in piecing that image together.
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Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
