Editorials
Spending unwisely
Jan 17, 2008 12:01 PM
Chancellor Klein granted principals an unprecedented degree of budget autonomy in his most recent reorganization of the school system. Where principals once received their budgets mainly in the form of positions and programs, now they get a lump-sum allotment to spend as they see fit.
Klein assumes that a principal — rather than the central board or a superintendent — is in the best position to allocate money to meet the needs of the school’s students. That may be true in schools where principals work collaboratively with their staff and have their students’ interests at heart.
But without any system of oversight, autonomy means unscrupulous principals can misuse resources with impunity. Take PS 114 in Canarsie [see “Leading the way to disaster” on page 27]. In this school of 900 kids, Principal Maria Penaherrara has padded her staff with four APs, one of whom serves double-duty as her chauffeur, and six staff developers. When the budgetary chickens came home to roost this fall, she dealt with the school’s deficit by eliminating the acclaimed reading intervention program Project Read, letting go of two substitute special education paras who had been promised full-time positions and dismissing an F-status teacher who is a new mother. As early as September, the principal was splitting up classes when a teacher was absent because she had no money for substitutes. Penaherrara also refused — until the UFT complained — to put on regular payroll a certified teacher who had been covering a permanent vacancy for three months.
UFT members and parents are rightfully up in arms. When the union complained to DOE officials at the Integrated Service Center that services PS 114, these officials said that they had no authority to order the principal to spend her funds differently, only to suggest changes.
In a vast system like New York City’s, school spending needs to be monitored so principals who don’t care about education can’t run amok with their budgets. Oversight need not be micromanagement, but it should ensure that all students are well served. Otherwise the freedom to spend means the freedom to spend unwisely.
