For Immediate Release
Contact: bowman.press@mail.house.gov

NEWS: Rep. Jamaal Bowman Leads NYC Congressmembers in Criticizing NYC Mayor Eric Adams on School Budget Cuts  

WASHINGTON, D.C.  - Today, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D (NY-16) led 7 of his colleagues in writing a letter to New York City Mayor Eric Adams underscoring the need to prioritize our public schools in the city’s FY 2023 budget. 

The NYC Comptroller’s office has reported that 77% of our public schools in New York City will experience budget cuts in this next school year totaling more than $469 million. These cuts come at a time when the NYC Department of Education (DoE) has $4.3 billion of unused funds from the $7 billion it received from federal stimulus money included in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP). These funds need to be utilized to support our children and our school communities holistically and we deserve full transparency into the city’s plan to allocate money across our schools. 

“There is no excuse for cutting our public school budgets,” said Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D (NY-16). “Our teachers, faculty, students and their families would be severely impacted by any reduction in school budgets - especially those learning or working at schools in predominantly low-income areas or communities of color. The impact of this pandemic on our youth can not be understated and our schools have a responsibility to meet their needs during very formative periods of their lives - it is the responsibility of our governments to properly fund and equip our schools to do so. Defunding education is unjustifiable. At the very least, the City and Mayor Adams need to direct remaining COVID relief funds into our public schools. Our youth are already struggling to keep up in large classes with limited resources. I voted in Congress to send billions of dollars to our schools for New York City so we could actually support the whole child and make evidence-based improvements to the learning environment, such as adopting the community school model, reducing class size, and more -- not to rollback funding in our public schools as the Adams Administration has. It is unacceptable and my colleagues and I will not tolerate it.”

“Budgets are a reflection of priorities and these budget cuts fall far short of the investment our children deserve,” said Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Nydia M. Velázquez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Grace Meng, Carolyn B. Maloney, Ritchie Torres and Yvette D. Clarke. “We therefore respectfully ask that you utilize DOE’s federal stimulus funding to restore NYC public school budgets and allow our educators to fully support their students with all the resources at their disposal.”

To read the full letter, please click here. 

Co-signers of the letter include: Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Nydia M. Velázquez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Grace Meng, Carolyn B. Maloney, Ritchie Torres and Yvette D. Clarke.

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