CM Dinowitz questions OMB on school safety agent cuts and restorative justice
Dinowitz questions cuts to school safety agents and failure to restore $6 million for restorative justice, which DOE testified would impact 25% of schools. Solomon cites 3,801 SSAs with 8% vacancy rate, new dismissals agents, and states restorative justice will be addressed through the Office of Community Safety.
Similarly, the executive plan includes a cut to the number of budgeted school safety agents and a failure to restore $6 million in restorative justice program, which is functionally a cut.
And the DOE testified yesterday over 25% of schools would lose restorative justice programming without this funding.
So how are you supporting school safety and why was this funding not included in the executive budget?
So the school safety agents have a headcount of about 3,801 as of the executive plan with a vacancy rate of roughly 8%.
The total budget is about $283 million in fiscal 27.
This is a conversation that we want to have with you.
We did add dismissal agents to address the busiest times and just hired a class of 100 school safety agents who are anticipated to begin in June.
We, on restorative justice, the executive plan includes funding to create, obviously, the Office of Community Safety.
And, you know, within that, we intend to address restorative justice proposals, programs.
Okay, well, I'm not sure how you do that with a cut when the DEWE testifies.
250 of their schools of the 900 roughly 960 schools that have this programming would lose it and share if I have one more