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View testimony
View May 2008 “Growing Pains” report
New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. submitted testimony today to the New York City Council Committees on Finance and Education regarding the Department of Education’s (DOE) proposed Five-Year Capital Plan for 2010-2014.
“A viable DOE capital plan for new capacity requires three elements,” Thompson said. “The first, of course, is money. The second is an accurate assessment of current capacity. And the third is accurate projections of future enrollment. Unfortunately, the DOE’s capital plan for the next five years has none of those elements.”
Thompson’s testimony – available at www.comptroller.nyc.gov – criticized DOE and its consultants for failing to adequately predict future enrollment.
Thompson’s office recently examined the rate of enrollment growth or decline for school years 2003-04 to 2008-09, district by district, projected by consultants retained by DOE, and compared it to the actual rate of change as reported by DOE. The analysis found that enrollment was substantially under-projected in eight districts, and substantially over-projected in another nine districts.
“This means that in more than half of the 32 community school districts, the projections were not useful,” Thompson said.”
In May 2008, Thompson released a report entitled Growing Pains: Reforming Department of Education Capital Planning to Keep Pace with New York City’s Residential Construction. His analysis found that enrollment projections produced by DOE consultants did not take into account residential building permits, and so did not adequately reflect increases in enrollment resulting from what was then a major building boom.
The 2008 report also found other flaws in the capital planning process. Schools take much too long to site, design and build, and the timetables are constantly being pushed back. For example, there is a project in District 20 that was to have been completed by November 2010 according to the 2005-2009 Capital Plan. The current Proposed Plan projects a completion date of December 2015.
“We are well aware of the constraints facing the City,” Thompson said. “Given those constraints, the amount of spending proposed in the capital plan may be all we can afford. Unfortunately, however, it is nowhere near enough to provide what we will need. Because of that, it is all the more important that parents and others be provided with all available information in a clear and comprehensible format, so they can make informed decisions for their children’s education and be able to track how their tax dollars are being spent.”
The Growing Pains report is also available at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.
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