City sacrificing future by freezing needed
capital projects amid COVID-19 crisis: Stringer
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
The fi nancial crunch that hit New
York City during the COVID-19
pandemic caused Mayor Bill de
Blasio to freeze various capital projects
such as school boiler replacements, road
reconstruction and affordable housing.
But City Comptroller Scott Stringer
believes this move will seriously backfi re
on New York City in the years ahead —
putting the city at risk of suffering the same
kind of infrastructural harm experienced in
the shadows of cutbacks during the 1970s
fi scal crisis.
Construction work stopped, at the order
of Governor Andrew Cuomo, after the pandemic
took hold of New York in March.
But rates of infection and death from coronavirus
are now steadily dropping, and de
Blasio said Thursday the city is on track for
a June reopening. Construction would be
one of the fi rst sectors of the non-essential
economy that would be cleared to resume.
In a May 21 letter to de Blasio, Stringer
pressed the mayor to lift the capital project
freeze, arguing that the city has more than
enough cash in the coffers to shore up its
infrastructure as needed. Kicking the can
down the road, the comptroller suggested,
would only cause more trouble in the future
— and wind up costing the city more to
repair it.
PHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
The Brooklyn Bridge on a Sunday morning in 1978. If the city puts off capital
projects in 2020, City Comptroller Scott Stringer said, New York risks running
into the same problems suffered during the 1970s fiscal crisis.
Department of Education adjusts summer school
2020 dates to start classes one week earlier
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
The Department of Education announced
that summer school classes
will begin a week earlier than previously
stated.
Third through eighth-grade students and
high schoolers who need to need to attend
summer classes will now sit for online
summer school starting on July 6, DOE
spokesperson Danielle Filson said in a May
20 e-mail, classes were originally slated to
begin on July 13.
Elementary school students will take
classes for four days a week and fi nish up
by August 11. Ninth through 12th graders
will need to attend class fi ve days a week
until August 14.
“This will allow for continuous learning
and give students and educators a break in
August before the start of the next school
year,” said Filson. “It will also give our
families and educators time off in August,
“In this time of severe fi scal strain, this
action may seem like a reasonable step to
save money,” Stringer wrote. “But I am
writing today to stress that stopping the
capital program has other consequences
that I believe outweigh the modest shortterm
savings that might be achieved.”
Stringer, the city’s fi nancial watchdog,
pointed out that the city remains fl ush
with cash even amid the current budget
crunch. The city’s Central Treasury has $5
billion on hand as of May 18, and earlier
Students across the borough — and their parents and teachers — are adjusting
to remote learning.
when hopefully there is an increased
chance for potential vacations and outdoor
activities. There is no change to duration or
structure for summer learning programs.”
this month, the Transitional Finance Authority
sold more than $1 billion in new
bonds.
The freeze’s consequences, Stringer
argued, would do more harm than good
to New York City. He pointed out that it
took New York “two decades to recover
from the lack of investment of the 1970s.”
Restarting priority capital projects now,
Stringer argued, not only avoids a repeat of
that troubling past, but can also put a bit of
a spark into the failing economy.
PHOTO VIA PEXELS
Filson added that the department would
begin notifying parents of the schedule
change late Wednesday. “ This will not
impact our timeline for notifi cations to
Resuming public construction would
also be a boon to the many minority- and
women-owned businesses across New York
City suffering mightily during the fi nancial
crisis, he added.
“During the Great Depression, robust
investments in capital projects helped revive
the economy, and create much-needed
jobs,” Stringer wrote. “As our city faces the
steepest economic downturn in modern
times, a prudent restart of the capital
program would help jumpstart today’s
economy.”
The de Blasio administration, however,
maintains that New York City is facing
massive revenue shortfalls and does not
want to increase fi nancing cost at the
present time.
“To fi ght our way out of this crisis and
save as many lives as possible, the city
has had to focus on addressing the immediate
health, safety, and shelter needs
of New Yorkers,” said Laura Feyer, deputy
press secretary of the Mayor’s offi ce, in a
statement to amNew York Metro. “This
massive redirection of resources, simultaneous
loss of revenue and concern for
workforce safety has forced us to make
tough choices including pausing nonessential
new infrastructure projects.
The federal government must step up to
provide the support that New York needs
to get through this crisis.”
families or determinations for which students
will be required or recommended to
attend summer learning,” she wrote.
On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced
that roughly 177,000 students will
need to attend summer school this year,
nearly 12 times as many students that attend
last year due to schools transitioning
to online learning given the novel coronavirus
pandemic.
“You take away months of the school
year in the much more effective setting of
everyone being together in a school building
where teachers can use all their skills
for maximum impact, of course, it’s going
to have an impact,” de Blasio told reporters
on Tuesday. “And it’s going to be a negative
impact.”
Although the city is anticipating a huge
increase in the number of summer school
students this year the number of teachers
instructing these students will remain the
same as last year at 6,000. Summer school
this year will cost the DOE about $83 million,
while last year the department spent
about $200 million, according to spokesperson
Danielle Filson.
14 May 28, 2020 Schneps Media