New York – New York City Council Members David G. Greenfield and Stephen T. Levin, along with a group of over 50 special education advocates, providers and students spent Tuesday in Albany asking state lawmakers to reject Mayor Bloomberg’s request for changes to the reimbursement of private special education programs in New York City. Last month, Mayor Bloomberg testified that switching the burden of proof in special education hearings from the Department of Education to parents would save New York City $100 million. This “switch” would negatively impact thousands of children in the Jewish community who currently attend private special education programs and receive partial tuition reimbursement from the City of New York.
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“There is no way the city is going to save any money in this proposal,” said Councilman Greenfield. “In fact, it will likely cost the city another $100 million. Quite frankly, this proposal has nothing to do with money. This is about the city trying to shift the conversation away from the Department of Education’s inability, and often unwillingness, to provide special needs children with the therapeutic programs and services they are entitled to by law. We traveled to Albany to make sure that our state lawmakers understand that the Mayor’s request to change the burden of proof in reimbursement hearings would leave 4,000 New York City children without any programs that meet their unique educational needs. In the end, parents and children are the ones who suffer.”
The city insists that shifting the burden of proof would save the city $100 million. In fact, the average cost of educating a special needs child in a public setting is $48,000 compared with just $25,000 on average in private placements. What’s more, thousands of children will still be eligible for tuition reimbursements because there is no appropriate public placement available to them.
“Mayor Bloomberg is asking children and families to pay an unreasonably high price for no real cost savings in the city’s budget,” said Councilman Stephen Levin. “These proposed changes would make it difficult for parents to navigate an already complicated system and potentially intimidate families from pursuing what they are entitled to by law. I am hopeful that the state legislators we met with today will ensure that our special needs children are protected from this unnecessary change.”
The Legislative Action Day, which was sponsored by TEACH NYS, brought community leaders from throughout New York together including representatives of several major Jewish organizations including the UJO of Williamsburg, Agudath Israel of America, the Sephardic Community Federation, Ichud, Ptach, Tafkid, YAI, Ohr HaLimud, and many other groups. The advocates met with over 40 elected officials in the Assembly and the Senate. Councilman Greenfield also led a meeting with the Governor’s top education advisers to impress on them the importance of protecting special needs children and families.
“Today we saw the results of what happens when a group of people refuse to stay silent about an issue that could have devastating consequences,” said Jeffrey Leb, Director of TEACH NYS. “Our advocates and parents did an outstanding job making the case on behalf of special needs children to lawmakers.”
The final state budget is due April 1, and Council Members Greenfield and Levin pledged to keep the pressure on Albany to safeguard reimbursements for special needs families.
With all the disgust and revulsion I have for mayor Bloomberg’s approach to managing NYC (based firmly on his utter disregard and lack of concern for the welfare of the citizens and residents of the City), I always believed that he must be a good administrator (considering his own personal wealth and business success). I now see that my assumption is untrue. He has fallen into one of the traps of modern society (the liberal end of it), where words that appear nice and noble may actually be cruel and contemptuous. Here, it is apparent that the “savings” would only be in appearance, while all, including the government, would actually suffer. I bet there are budget cuts that are desperately needed. But this is one of those areas where it would not have a positive result of any sort. I guess Bloomberg’s days of being a capable leader are over.
Why aren’t 5,000 parents in Albany fighting for this cause?
The reason why the Bloomberg administration and the state of New York go after the frum people with every single NEEDED program is we don’t vote and we don’t care.
When was the last time someone even phone the mayor or emailed the mayor?
When was the last time we even cared about anything?
And when politicians do good things for us and their constiuents do any of us have the decency to call them and their staff to thank them for their hard work?
I guarantee that as long as have a stinking atitude towards our elected officials and do not care about each other things will only get worse.
Why aren’t we sick and tired when we hear from people stating their kids don’t have these problems? Thank the lor-d you don’t have issues with your kids and help others in need. lets stop being a self centered community.
The NYC Council recently passed a slew of pro-abortion resolutions. One was a resolution cracking down on pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and the others condemned the slew of pro-life bills to be going through Congress. The council voted in favor of condemning efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, condemning physician freedom of conscience legislation, and condemning a bill that would end taxpayer funding for abortion. While Judaism supports abortion in only the narrowest instances to save the mother’s life, our position is nuanced, but has a lot more in common with that of the pro-lifers.Regrettably, Councilman David Greenfield voted in favor of these provisions- Resolutions 666, 670, 672, and 371. This comes on the heels of Agudas Yisroel condemning NYC’s rate of 41% of pregnancies ending in abortion.I think this is a major Chillul HaShem, and a break with the generally pro-life positions taken by Noach Dear and Simchs Felder in the past. I wonder what the rationale is of Councilman Greenfield. As a constituent, I am befuddled and am embarrassed. I also wonder what this will mean for his connections with the Conservative Party, which endorsed him and is anti-abortion.
Thanks for bringing this issue to my attention. I just spend 15 minutes on the phone with my friend in the Conservative party. He tells me that the party is quite pleased with Greenfield. Apparently the bill that you are referring to was the ORIGINAL bill. Because Greenfield said he would vote against the original bill, the author CHANGED the bill and a compromise bill was forged just hours before the Council meeting. Now instead of being a Pro-Choice bill, the bill was changed to ONLY IMPACT a few deceptive facilities that are lying to their patients (for example, all Catholic Centers are EXEMPT under the new bill). The only thing these deceptive centers would have to do is post a sign that they do not have doctors on staff. That’s it. So you’re right, Greenfield did something that no-one else could have ever done: he changed his colleagues minds and negotiatied a legislative compromise. Nice work, R’ Duvid!
In all the shuffle, everybody forgot the ELDERLY!! Don;t you all have parents?? All the cuts that are going on??? Kibud Av???