Justice
Leland DeGrasse
Dear
Justice DeGrasse:
Last week,
we wrote you that the need for additional accountability and oversight over the
use of the CFE funds was reinforced by the request for an audit of New York
City’s spending of the state class size reduction funds by three elected
officials, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, State Senator Eric Schneiderman, and City Councilmember Robert Jackson, a plaintiff
in the CFE lawsuit.
This
request, made to the New York State Comptroller’s office, was triggered by evidence
that New York City Department of Education officials had misreported class size
data, and that while officials claimed that they had formed 1,586 additional classes in grades K-3 with use of the state
funds, our schools had only 540 more classes in these grades than before the
state class size reduction program began.
Following
the request for an audit, DOE officials said that they had been cleared of any
allegations of misuse of these funds by an earlier audit carried out by the
State Comptroller’s office. In response
to these comments, the Comptroller shared with reporters and advocates a
previously unknown audit that showed the opposite: that as of 2002, DOE had formed only 55% of
the additional classrooms in grades K-3 for which they had received funding
under the state program. Rather than requiring stricter compliance, as had been
recommended, the State Education Department apparently did nothing, allowing
Moreover,
just yesterday the City Comptroller released a letter, which calls into
question claims by Department of Education officials that their restructuring
efforts had led to cost savings that were redirected to the classroom. The letter instead pointed out that despite a
significant rise in overall funding, our schools have
lost more than 2,000 teachers over the last two years. City Comptroller William Thompson also wrote
in this letter that “DOE
fiscal reporting practices have become markedly less transparent since the
Department's restructuring. …DOE has misapplied certain units of appropriation
to report expenditures, commencing with FY 2004, in a way that makes it
difficult, if not impossible, to track its use of public funds."
These new,
previously unreported findings from the State and City Comptroller’s offices, pointing
to DOE’s lack
of transparency and irregularities in the use of education dollars further
emphasizes how critical it will be to provide strengthened accountability with the
additional resources that the city is likely to receive as a result of the CFE
case. We have to ensure that there is accurate reporting and sufficient public
scrutiny as to the use of these funds, as well as rigorous and enforceable
class size targets, so that a significant share of these additional resources
go towards remedying the specific school and classroom conditions that were
found to be deficient in the case. Only if
strengthened accountability, public review and oversight are provided can we be
assured that one day our children will receive their constitutional rights to a
sound basic education.
News
reports of the findings of the State and City Comptroller’s offices follow.
Sincerely,
Executive
Director, Class Size Matters
cc: Michael A. Rebell
Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc.
Joseph F.
Wayland
Simpson Thacher &
425
Elliot Spitzer
Attorney General of the State of
120 Broadway
Richard
Rifkin
Deputy Attorney General of the State of
120 Broadway