By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — State budget cuts are going to delay the construction of Downtown's much-needed new elementary school, the city said last week.
The new 400-seat school, likely at the Peck Slip Post Office site, will not start construction until 2014, a Department of Education spokesman said. Work on the school was supposed to begin in 2013, but the city no longer has enough money after the state proposed slashing funding for new school seats by 48 percent, the DOE said. The only way the school could get back on track is if Albany comes up with more cash, the city said.
Downtown parent activists who have fought hard for the new school were outraged to hear of the delay.
"To cut the [School Construction Authority's] budget when we're so far behind in school building — such a move is completely unconscionable to me," said Tricia Joyce, a parent leader at P.S. 234 in TriBeCa. "It's unacceptable."
The popular P.S. 234 will have to hold a kindergarten lottery yet again this year, since the school received at least 166 applications for 125 seats.
Downtown parents expect lower Manhattan to be short 1,000 elementary seats by 2015, and advocates had hoped the new elementary school would be open before then.
But if construction on the school does not start until 2014, it may not open until 2016 or later.
"That would be a disaster," said Eric Greenleaf, a P.S. 234 parent and New York University professor who has drafted Downtown population predictions. "That would be horrible. Then we'd be completely up the creek."
The School Construction Authority planned to build more than 30,000 new school seats in the 2010-2014 capital plan, and the state and city were supposed to split the cost.
But after the state proposed drastically cutting its capital funding earlier this month, the city's School Construction Authority said it would only have enough money to build about 14,500 of the seats.
"Albany’s proposed cuts to our school construction efforts will mean more overcrowding, fewer new buildings and deteriorating conditions at our existing buildings," Schools Chancellor Cathie Black said in a statement earlier this month. "We understand the need to invest wisely during these tough budget times, but the state’s decision to cut back on school construction aid means that we will not be able to keep up with the projected demand across the city.”
The Panel for Educational Policy will vote on the SCA's revised capital plan in March, and then it will go to the City Council for approval.
