By Kathianne Boniello
As citywide funding for school construction evaporates, Schools Chancellor Harold Levy has proposed delaying construction of four new Queens schools to meet Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed budget cuts.
According to a memo circulated among city Board of Education members last week, Levy has proposed postponing construction for a total of 10 schools, including two elementary schools in School District 24, an early childhood center in School District 27 and a high school in Queens.
The Queens schools Levy has proposed to delay building are PS 246 and PS 650L in the Glendale-based School District 24, Early Childhood Center 400 in the South Ozone Park-based School District 27, and the planned High School for Hospitality and Business Management in western Queens.
The memo came to light just before the City Council’s Education Committee was scheduled to hold some of its first public hearings Friday and Monday to consider the impact of Bloomberg’s proposed budget reductions on education.
Queens Board of Ed representative Terri Thomson called the proposal “very bad ” and said it added another series of delays before Queens, which has the city’s most overcrowded classrooms. could get new schools.
“Our hope is the city council delegation will work together and not allow this to happen,” she said. With every delay new schools “get pushed further and further out” of the process, she said.
A spokesman for Borough President Helen Marshall said the borough’s top official would continue to fight for new schools.
“We’re not giving up on these schools,” said Dan Andrews.
Thomson pointed out that when the additional budget cuts requested by Bloomberg were coupled with the $2.3 billion in projects the Board of Ed postponed in December to close its school construction budget gap, the board had chopped a total of $3 billion in the last several months.
The Board of Ed wrangled for months over how to close that $2.3 billion gap until a close, politically dominated December vote gave the borough a victory with 14 of 19 Queens school projects slated to be built.
But the then-bright future for Queens school construction was quickly darkened by the city’s $4 billion budget deficit and Bloomberg’s determination to eliminate it.
Upon taking office, Bloomberg asked every city agency to consider how it would make a 20 percent budget cut in the face of economic difficulties for the city brought on by the Sept. 11 disaster and other economic problems. He later made those cuts official in the proposed budget he submitted to the City Council.
That left Queens with just four school projects expected to go forth in 2002: PS/IS 499 on the Queens College campus, PS 253 and 254 in School District 27, and an addition to Queens Vocation High School.
With the four schools Levy has now proposed to cut, Thomson said the borough has lost any headway in the battle against school overcrowding.
“Four went in, and now four are out,” she said.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
