Mayor Mamdani’s $124.7 billion budget plan Tuesday was full of proposals with big implications for New York City public schools.
Gov. Hochul, with the blessing of other state lawmakers, was set to grant Mamdani his sought-after delay to a costly class-size mandate, the pair said. The announcement also included $150 million in additional state aid for city schools. Meanwhile, Mamdani said he found savings in his own budget proposal, if he can reform special-education disputes between families and the city.
Here’s what the proposals mean for the city’s budget — and more importantly, for your children’s education:
A delay to smaller class sizes
Susan Watts / Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Governor Kathy Hochul speaks at a press conference in Manhattan on Monday, May 11, 2026. (Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)
Hochul and Mamdani announced a deal with the state Legislature that will give city schools more time to comply with a 2022 law to lower class sizes to fewer than 20 to 25 students, depending on the grade level.
The delay is expected to save the city $508 million next fiscal year, and grow to $733 million the year after that. The announcement did not allocate new money for the sole purpose of class size reduction, which the Assembly in particular had pushed for — though the city is getting more state school aid expected to be used for that goal.
While some students will have to wait longer for more individualized attention and teachers for more manageable classrooms, the school system is still expected to make some progress. Mamdani plans to add $122 million to the city budget ahead of next school year to hire 1,000 more teachers, and $1.5 billion to the five-year school construction plan to build more classrooms.
“Make no mistake, we are fully committed to fulfilling the state mandate in a meaningful way on a realistic timeline that New Yorkers can actually trust,” said Mamdani, who campaigned on meeting the requirement, while then-Mayor Adams criticized the cost.
State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairperson of the Senate’s NYC Education Committee and sponsor of the law, said the changes mean 70% of classrooms must be in compliance this fall. That’s down from 80%, as required by current law, which Chancellor Kamar Samuels has said would be “very difficult” to reach.
The senator said lawmakers are still hashing out how many more years the city will have to come into full compliance, but that Mamdani’s investments suggest he is on the right track: “The mayor has made good on his word,” Liu said.
More state money for local schools
Sen. John Liu , D-Queens, is pictured during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday, April 17, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
The $150 million in additional state aid is a “conservative estimate,” Liu said of the increase that city schools can expect in the state budget, which is now more than a month late. The city could still see more school aid, depending on how the final stretch of negotiations goes.
The senator said the increase stems from yet-to-be-finalized changes to the state’s school aid formula, Foundation Aid, which provides more funding to school districts whose students are more costly to educate — such as English learners and homeless children.
Unlike the short-term relief provided by delaying the class-size mandate, changes to Foundation Aid would be recurring and benefit the city’s most at risk students in the years to come. It would also help in undoing the long-term damage caused by shifts in the formula last year that turned out to be bad news for the city’s schools.
Hochul, in a sweeping statement, said the state was “making significant investments in education,” as well as other areas. “This is what a results-driven, responsible partnership looks like.”
Special-education savings
While Mamdani’s approach to budgeting has been praised for more accurately reflecting the costs of administering key programs, his Tuesday budget plan is balanced in part on a risky assumption — that he can reform the system of special-education disputes, and do it as soon as next year.
The mayor’s budget estimates the city will save $149 million by appropriately serving students with disabilities whose families would have otherwise turned to the private sector, then sued the city over the tuition cost incurred.
Those lawsuits, known as “due process cases,” are projected to cost the city $1.5 billion this year, which Mamdani said he could bring down by investing in public school services and revamping the management of those cases. Spokespeople for the mayor and public schools did not immediately provide more information.
It’s not the first time a mayoral administration has tried to contain the costs associated with due process cases, and families have argued their children with disabilities were not getting what they needed. Mamdani, meanwhile, insisted the reforms are not a zero-sum game.
“We will be able to not only yield savings, but also deliver better outcomes for families,” the mayor told reporters.
And the rest
On top of the big-ticket items in Mamdani’s budget proposal, he intends to allocate $40 million to increase child care provider rates for the first time since 2021 and $17.3 million to keep expanding the city’s signature literacy and math programs.
The mayor also set aside $15 million in long-term funding for CUNY programs that had previously been funded on a year-to-year basis.