Report Blasts Bloomberg Administration For Schools In Disrepair
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A city union is using language from the city's own inspections to detail what it calls decaying schools in the poorest neighborhoods.
A cleaner at P.S. 202 in East New York said a slop sink in the school has been clogged for six months and it now emits a rotten odor.
The worker said when he complains to school officials, they tell him it'll be fixed next week.
"Next week comes and nothing has been done," he told 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria.
Report Blasts Bloomberg Administration For Dirty Schools
It's an example of the decrepit school building conditions cited by his union, SEIU 32BJ.
LINK: Read The Union Report (pdf)
Union president Hector Figueroa said the Bloomberg administration is to blame.
"Year after year, the budgets allocated to maintenance have been cut and the conditions compromise our children's education," he told D'Auria.
Union members, education advocates and city councilmembers announced the findings of the report outside New York City Department of Education headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Report Blasts Bloomberg Administration For Dirty Schools
"Our schools in the outer boroughs, in the poor neighborhoods where largely minorities live are being short-changed by this administration," Figueroa added.
The union claims there are 1,000 fewer maintenance workers than when Mayor Bloomberg first took office.
"If my toilet wasn't working, if PCBs were in my house and someone came into my house, they would take my children away and label me a bad parent," Zakiyah Ansari with the Alliance for Public Education told reporters including WCBS 880's Paul Murnane.
But a DOE spokeswoman said serious maintenance complaints are addressed immediately and non-critical complaints are prioritized.
The spokeswoman added the city is spending more tha $3 billion in building improvements under its capital plan.
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