CM Gutierrez on restorative justice funding clarification

For restorative justice.

What can you share?

Is that you or not?

That's you.

No, no, no, yeah.

I was expecting the AI question.

It's fine.

No, that was it.

We could be here all day with AI.

You gave me an okie-dokie there.

You're like, okay.

I think I need to feel my concern, but I'm not going to ask about it right now.

Okay, got you.

For restorative justice, can you share a little bit about the...

The issue with the vacancies?

Because as I understand it, that's where the cuts are being proposed is because there are vacancies or no?

Am I misunderstanding that?

Yeah, no.

So first of all, you know, again, we are committed to ensuring that we have high quality

programs when it comes to restorative practices is a huge part of what we do and our response to this discipline code and so I'm going to turn it over to chief to talk a little bit more but I'm not exactly sure the vacancy well just and I'm sorry I'm I

misspoke so it's cuts to RJ and then vacancies related to social services so two different things

Okay, so you want us to adjust the cuts to how the cuts to RJ?

Yeah, I want to understand why there are cuts to RJ, kind of what happened there.

I don't see, I mean, the cuts, what cuts to show you first?

Was there no cuts to RJ training and proposed in the executive?

Cuts to the RJ training?

Yes.

No.

When you say, I mean, the last council member, I apologize, I forgot the name, the question that she asked was about cohorts.

Is that what you're referring to as well?

No.

Okay.

You're referring to...

So the cut in the budgetary cut.

In the savings.

Yeah.

In an effort for all the savings, my understanding was that there was cuts to restorative justice training.

There was no cut in our savings that was submitted related to restorative justice.

I think what folks have been talking about is the $6 million.

That is not in fiscal year 27 as of yet.

I know that typically that...

The funding for that or the allocation for that happens through the adopted budget negotiation process.

So I think that's what folks are referring to, but there's no specific cuts that we've taken for restorative justice.

And the six, thank you, thank you for clarifying.

And the six million that you're referring to that, you know, we will see at adoption, can you share, is that being invested in specific programs that you can highlight or is it any of the social services or that's separate?

So I'll turn it over.

Mark, I don't know if you want to talk about specifics about restorative justice, but in terms of the work that we're doing now and that we hope to continue to do in fiscal year 27 once the funding is allocated.

Yeah, once the funding is reallocated into the budget, that is the intention is to continue the work that we're doing around restorative.

To expand it to more schools around the city.

Okay, and there's nothing that you can say about, so, and the $6 million is a new allocation?

No, $6 million is not a new allocation.

What's getting confused here is we're talking about $6 million that is not baselined.

Right?

And that's what you're referring to.

So without the baseline funding, obviously restorative is going to take some change in the way that it is modeled and offered to schools.

So if, in fact, the $6 million is, in fact, restored, I'll say restored, we'll continue to be able to provide the existing schools.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

And is there any intention for...

Or is there any need, in your opinion, for additional funding to meet this need?

Because I think there's a lot of advocates that are saying they would love to see more investments in restorative justice, obviously.

So I think that is kind of where my line of questioning wants to get to.

I get $6 million is not nothing, but I think is there an opportunity or kind of what is the assessment on the need for more to expand on this, to reach more schools?

I think at the prelim we had some feedback from council members who had engaged with their schools about specific programming.

Kind of where is the line of thinking or priority for that specific area where people want to see more of it?

Maybe stronger programs or expanded.

So everyone has an opinion around what they would like to see as it relates to restorative.

What we'd like to see in New York City Public School is a program that continues to evolve.

Evolve in the sense that more people are trained, the mindset is shifting, right?

What we need to be able to do is continue to have more people invest in the overall work, right?

So we continue to offer cohorts where people are not showing.

Right?

And so the real conversation is around getting more people to buy in to the notion of restorative and then create our internal muscle where our staff can train our staff and we can continue to grow and grow and grow.

It's not necessarily about more money.

It's about more people investing in the notion of restorative practices.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, chairs.