This is ugly, folks. The Renewal Program is failing, special needs kids are not getting their resources, and educators and Guidance Counselors are getting fired for no reason....but TWEED expands!

That why we need financial oversight of the Department. No one is there right now. Get rid of Mayoral Control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com

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Mayor Bill de Blasio

DOE doubles number of top administrators under de Blasio

By Selim Algar

The Department of Education nearly doubled the number of top-level administrators under Mayor de Blasio — and plans to more than triple the payroll, according to city data.

The preliminary budget for 2017-2018 is so bloated that it allocates $11,386,000 in salary for central office “pedagogical” staff — a massive hike from $4,055,000 in the last pre-de-Blasio fiscal year of 2013-2014, budget reports show.

The DOE has quietly expanded the gilded group of educrats from 39 in 2014 to 76 this year, according to city data, including Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s top deputies and other senior staffers whose work relates to student instruction and curriculum.

Overall spending on DOE brass has fattened during each of de Blasio’s years in office, the budget data show.

De Blasio’s adopted budget for central administration compensation was $4,055,000 in 2014, $5,053,000 in 2015, $7,809,000 in 2016 and $9,501,000 this fiscal year, according to city records.

“First we learned that Mayor de Blasio put 264 special assistants on his City Hall payroll, and now we learn the city has doubled its spending on bureaucrats in the Department of Education’s central office,” said Jeremiah Kittredge, CEO of charter-school advocate Families for Excellent Schools.

“Because every dollar spent on the mayor’s allies at Education headquarters is a dollar that can’t also be spent in classrooms, this paycheck padding directly and dangerously hurts innocent students,” he said.

The per capita spending average for this year, according to the current version of the city’s adopted budget, amounts to $290,636 for just 33 people.

But a DOE spokesperson said the numbers were out of date and that there were actually now 76 administrators in the category splitting $10.7 million. As a result, the per-person spending would be roughly $140,000.

The spokesperson attributed some of the overall increase in budgeting to a raft of major new initiatives undertaken by the DOE under de Blasio, which have required greater support from the central office.

“We’re investing in every student with our Equity and Excellence for All agenda, and this funding is critical as we continue to raise record-high graduation and college-enrollment rates, and provide pre-K for every 4-year-old,” DOE spokesman Will Mantell said.

Mantell stressed that next year’s preliminary budget was tentative and that adjustments to both spending and the number of central administration pedagogical employees would change.

“These are preliminary allocations and do not reflect any final spending,” Mantell said.

Overall funding of DOE bureaucracy — in addition to just the top administrators — has also risen under de Blasio.

According to the preliminary budget for next year, a total of 1,918 central administration workers are slated for $210,227,000 in overall pay. That compares to $163,947,000 in 2015 for 1,922 staffers.

DOE bloat isn’t limited to the central office headquarters.

As revealed by The Post earlier this month, the department shells out a staggering $40 million on contracts a year to consultants for help with Mayor de Blasio’s beleaguered Renewal school program.

That’s in addition to an $8.5 million payroll for 72 DOE bureaucrats dedicated to rescuing the cratering campuses from closure.