{"id":14411,"date":"2025-10-24T00:29:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T00:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/14411\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T00:29:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T00:29:21","slug":"mamdani-a-tax-hike-proponent-targets-nyc-public-school-budget-bloat-for-savings-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/14411\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani, a tax hike proponent, targets NYC public school budget bloat for savings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, who has spoken at length about raising taxes to help fund his affordability agenda<\/a>, outlined a plan Tuesday to cut costs in New York City\u2019s public schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mamdani estimated his efforts would result in at least a 10% reduction in what he called \u201credundant\u201d spending on Education Department contracts \u2014 though he did not provide a firm dollar amount for his goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, we\u2019ve allowed individuals like Elon Musk to pretend as if concerns of efficiency and waste are that of the right-wing, when in fact they should be the bedrock of any progressive politics,\u201d said Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, on the Upper West Side, in a reference to the Department of Government Efficiency or \u201cDOGE.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Mamdani has largely pushed for increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and using the revenue to fund his campaign promises such as free child care for all New York families<\/a>. But as Gov. Hochul has continued to throw cold water on tax hikes, the Democratic nominee has signaled his openness to other funding sources, which could include savings elsewhere in the city budget.<\/p>\n

The Education Department\u2019s $41.2-billion budget<\/a>\u00a0is by far the largest of any city agency, and includes about $10 billion in contracts with external vendors. Mamdani, while defending many contracts as \u201cessential,\u201d also claimed the procurement process is imperfectly managed \u2014 resulting in duplicative spending and an overall lack of accountability.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s plan has three parts: reduce wasteful spending, overhaul procurement infrastructure, and ensure vendors answer for the quality of their services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will follow every single dollar,\u201d he said. \u201cThat means annual audits of the top 50 vendors and the 25 largest contracts, that means launching an initiative to review every single conduct contract as it comes up for renewal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DemocraticDemocratic mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani is pictured on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, during an Upper West Side press conference to announce procurement reforms at the Department of Education. (Cayla Bamberger \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Mamdani would also merge two DOE procurement offices while opening borough-based \u201chubs,\u201d transition education vendors onto the same portal used by other city agencies<\/a>, and require new trainings and certification for all procurement staff. To hold vendors accountable, his main idea is a \u201cratings\u201d dashboard where principals and teachers can grade vendors on quality, timeliness and reliability, among other factors.<\/p>\n

The DOE\u2019s procurement process was put in the hot seat under Mayor Adams as investigations swirled around his former schools chancellor David Banks\u2019 dealings with vendors represented by his brother Terence<\/a>. More recently, the office faced questions from the city\u2019s comptroller, Brad Lander, over exorbitant spending at one Brooklyn restaurant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, acknowleged procurement reform is \u201cnot a sexy proposal to be campaigning on,\u201d but one that is very worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is bread and butter. This is the heart and soul of government,\u201d Champeny said. \u201cOur research has found we\u2019re spending more and more.<\/a>.. but we\u2019re seeing very limited improvements in educational outcomes, and too many of our children are still not reading and doing math on grade level<\/a>. So trying to figure out how to get bang for your buck on resources is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn agency as large as DOE, as expansive \u2014 with as many schools, as many offices \u2014 there is, in my mind, there\u2019s no doubt there\u2019s duplication and inefficiency that can be achieved by a really thorough and detailed analysis of those 3,000-plus contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 21, 2025 at 5:14 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, who has spoken at length about raising taxes to help fund his affordability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[67,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,563,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-14411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}