A letter from School Chancellor Klein to parents and families explaining our schools' current budget situation.

Attached you will find a letter (in many different languages) to parents and families explaining our schools' current budget situation.

Dear Parent or Guardian

As you may know, our schools are facing very tough financial realities. New York State’s legislature has not yet passed a budget for this year, but the Governor’s proposed budget would send $500 million less than last year to New York City schools.

On top of those cuts, we have increasing costs—for special education and pensions, for example—that actually leave us short by more than $750 million.

As of last week, we believed we would have to lay off 4,400 teachers citywide because of our budget shortfall. But earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he will withhold proposed salary increases for the next two years for teachers and administrators in order to save our teachers’ jobs. The Department’s central managerial staff will similarly not receive any across the board cost of living increases.

As a result, we will not have to lay off a single teacher for next year.

I know that it’s not easy for our educators and their families to give up these raises. But I believe that tough times also call for shared sacrifice. Central administrative budgets have already been cut by nearly 20 percent in the past two years, including a reduction of nearly 550 staff positions. Next year, central offices will take an additional cut of nearly $40 million with another five percent cut in staff.

While avoiding layoffs goes a long way toward protecting our schools from the worst effects of the state’s insufficient funding, it doesn’t solve all of our budget problems. We still expect to lose at least 2,000 teaching positions next year because we simply won’t be able to afford to replace teachers who retire.

And we still face a huge deficit, which compels us to find savings centrally and in our schools. For the upcoming school year, we’re forced to trim school budgets by four percent. I know these cuts to our schools will not be easy, especially coming on top of cuts of 4.9% last year. But we will continue to take every possible measure to keep our teachers in the classroom and to minimize the effects of these cuts on our students.

I urge you to reach out to your child’s principal or parent coordinator with any specific school-based questions you may have. You can also e-mail DOEBudget@schools.nyc.gov.

At a time when the City—indeed, the entire country—is being forced to make do with less, this plan allows us to retain what’s most important to our students: the resourceful, inspiring, hard-working teachers who are making a real diffe'rence in their lives.

Sincerely,
Joel I. Klein
Chancellor

• Arabic--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (121 KB)
• Bengali--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (113 KB)
• Chinese--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (165 KB)
• English--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (28 KB)
• French--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (95 KB)
• Haitian Creole--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (91 KB)
• Korean--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (133 KB)
• Russian--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (112 KB)
• Spanish--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (95 KB)
• Urdu--Chancellor Memo to Parents 06042010.pdf (184 KB)