New York City public school budgets will not be cut for the 2026-2027 school year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration said, keeping money in place for programs and instruction across the nation’s largest school system. The news was first reported by amNewYork, which the administration told on June 7 that funding would stay steady or possibly even increase.
School funding is usually tied to how many kids are enrolled. When a school loses students, it typically loses money automatically. City enrollment has dropped nearly 10 percent over the past six years, falling below 800,000. Keeping funding flat anyway, so schools keep their money even as their rolls shrink, is a policy officials call “holding schools harmless.”
“As our public school system enters a new era under Chancellor Kamar Samuels-one rooted in excellence, equity and opportunity for every student-we will be holding schools harmless in funding allocations for the coming school year,” Mamdani said. “This investment reflects our belief that students and educators deserve stability as they prepare for the year ahead.”
Educators have said past cuts have gutted programs and, at times, pushed them to buy classroom materials out of their own pockets.
Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said funding could climb next year, though he did not say by how much. “As we continue building a system that supports academically rigorous integrated schools, we are proud to be providing stability by maintaining or increasing school funding this year,” Samuels said.
Total funding for the 2025-2026 school year was $44.6 billion, per amNewYork. (The Department of Education’s own funding page lists the current-year figure at $45 billion.) The commitment lands in the middle of the city’s larger money fight: Mamdani’s overall budget, now at $124.7 billion, is still under review in the City Council.
Getting to a yes took months. Chalkbeat reported in March that Education Department officials repeatedly sidestepped the question at a City Council hearing on the mayor’s proposed budget. At that hearing, Samuels said flatly that “no decision has been made on hold harmless,” while arguing the city should be “making sure those schools are sustainable and can withstand the impact of the declining enrollment.”
Council members wanted an answer sooner. “I really want to make sure we’re not in a situation where we’re seeing school budgets a day before the vote,” Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler said at the March hearing, per Chalkbeat. Others questioned the policy itself. “Are we funding empty seats?” Queens Council member Phil Wong asked. “And is there a long term plan to phase this out, or this is now a permanent policy?”
The politics of touching this money are brutal, and City Hall has the receipts. When former Mayor Eric Adams initially started winding the program down, the blowback was severe enough that Council members later apologized for approving the spending plan and families printed T-shirts saying Adams defunded their schools, Chalkbeat reported. Adams reversed course and kept propping budgets up.
Chalkbeat reported the city has spent $1.6 billion propping up budgets over the years, including more than $388 million this school year to offset lower enrollment, the biggest single-year total since the pandemic. The hold-harmless money is a small share of the more than $16 billion the Education Department spends on K-12 schools and instruction, but on dozens of campuses it accounts for more than 10 percent of a school’s initial allocation.
Mamdani said the decision also kept the taxpayer in mind. “We are also committed to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and will evaluate all programs and spending to ensure resources deliver results for students and families,” he said.
He framed the schools as more than classrooms. “They are community centers for our families, a warm meal every day for every child, a resource for young people struggling, and a respite for our city’s kids, no matter their zip code, immigration status or the language they speak,” the mayor said.
