$745,000 tab racked up at the eatery by the Department of Education<\/a>.<\/p>\nCoffee and tea for a large group cost $200 each while the orange juice cost $300, according to the paperwork.<\/p>\n
The food has become a hit with Brooklyn residents \u2014 and the NYC DOE. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n
The middle school made 13 catering orders to Fusion East on school days between Aug. 28 and Sept. 6 of 2024 \u2014 most of which exceeded city spending limits, officials said. <\/p>\n
The Caribbean eatery, which offers a\u00a0\u00a0customer-pleasing $5 special, provided seven lunches and six breakfasts during that span that contributed to the overall\u00a0payment\u00a0of $745,000 the Department of Education funneled to Fusion East in the past fiscal year that raised red flags with the city comptroller\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The middle school, led by principal\u00a0Gregory Jackson\u00a0\u2014\u00a0who was arrested on drinking and driving charges in May\u00a0\u2014 spent $2,930 on breakfast orders for about 100 people on two separate occasions, according to the invoices.<\/p>\n
The orders included bacon and sausage, scrambled eggs, waffles and home fries, the invoices show. <\/p>\n
The coffee and tea boxes\u00a0cost $200 while the orange juice was a $300 expense.<\/p>\n
About 100 people\u00a0also feasted on lunches with two separate\u00a0orders running up a bill of $2,410.<\/p>\n
Fusion East made about $20,000 in a week last year at one Brooklyn school. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n
Those orders consisted of chicken and whiting\u00a0that each cost $640, as well as rice and peas, mac and cheese, and collard greens, the invoices show.<\/p>\n
Oxtails, jerk chicken and other sides was among a more modest order that only rang up the middle school for $830 for 50 people, according to another purchase order.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear what\u00a0events\u00a0the catering\u00a0was meant for \u2014 the orders were listed\u00a0only\u00a0as going toward \u201cschool events.\u201d The first official day of school for students didn\u2019t take place until Sept. 5, 2024.<\/p>\n
The DOE did not respond to a Post email asking why the food, which was worth $19,998, was ordered \u2014 and who ate it.<\/p>\n
The department previously admitted the middle school violated spending limits and said the school\u2019s leadership and administrative teams underwent procurement training as a result of the high spending. <\/p>\n
Fusion East owner Andrew Walcott, who is part of a program that connects minority and women-owned businesses with government agencies, said in an interview Monday that it took nearly eight months for the middle school to\u00a0make\u00a0those 13 payments.<\/p>\n
Walcott said he had to email various officials and even threatened to go to the inspector general for the DOE before the payments were finally made.<\/p>\n
Leaders at Brownsville Collaborative Middle School underwent training after the large spending. Google Map<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was 8 months non-payment and then they paid,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Jackson, the principal, faced legal trouble on top of the high spending last school year when he was arrested and charged with DWI in Brooklyn on May 5. <\/p>\n
He allegedly slammed into several parked cars and then overturned on the night of May 5, police said according to a Daily News report. <\/a><\/p>\nHe pleaded not guilty to the charges and has a court appearance set for Aug. 21. <\/p>\n
His attorney, Paul Prestia, declined comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it pork barrel binging. A Big Apple middle school shoveled nearly $20,000 in a single week to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,17452,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,988,12894,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-124779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-department-of-education","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-restaurants","19":"tag-taxpayers","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114984301824993921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}