I came in about an hour into budget deliberations, just in time to hear a motion from Mr. O'Connell to cut $500,000--yes, half a million dollars--from the adminstration account.
That's this account:
That's also this account (at the top):
(and in that case, note that the majority of what is reported as central administrative spending under the foundation budget is spent by the city and credited as school spending.
This isn't fiscal prudence; this is just reckless disregard for good governance.
A motion to cut $20,000 from rentals earlier apparently passed. I don't know who made the motion, but presumably it wasn't made in connection with any real facilities planning despite this:
Miss Biancheria made a motion to cut the $85,000 for the superintendent's secretary; that seems oddly personal.
After specifically asking about the funding level for substitute secretarial coverage and receiving the answer that the account was still underbudgeted (
I believe she was told it should be $150K and was $126K; I'll check), Miss Biancheria then cut $10,000 from secretarial coverage.
This, added to the $20K cut from legal last session, then came to $50K, which was added to professional development, which you will no doubt hear about this summer.
You will probably also hear of their "no" votes from Miss Biancheria and Mr. O'Connell, as the budget passed 5-2.
That's on a budget of $364,928,023; including grants, it is $420,886,178. It is a 4.9% increase over FY20.
