The State Senate is returning to Albany on Thursday, August 6, and Mayoral Control – referred to by some as school governance – legislation may finally come to a vote.
The Senate is expected to enter session at 10 a.m. and then take up the amendments, which Democratic Senators and City Hall representatives agreed to on Friday, July 24, and then vote on the bill. Queens State Senator Toby Stavisky said there are enough votes to pass the amendments in the Senate.
“In Albany, nothing is permanent until the gavel sounds,” Stavisky said.
Some of the amendments included a $1.6 million for parent training centers throughout the city, the creation of an arts advisory council and strengthening the role of the district superintendents – all while keeping the mayor and school chancellor in charge of the school system.
“It’s better than it was; it still doesn’t have everything I would have hoped for,” Stavisky said. “I think it’s a fair compromise, and that’s what we have to be willing to do.”
During a briefing with reporters in Queens on Tuesday, August 4, Mayor Michael Bloomberg mentioned that he hoped the Senate would finally vote to reauthorize mayoral control when it returned to session later that week.
The Assembly will not return on Thursday, and Speaker Sheldon Silver has previously indicated that he is unsure whether the Assembly would pass all, some or none of the Senate’s amendments. The Assembly is not expected to take up the bill until September.
The State Senate failed to act on a bill at the end of June that the Assembly passed with overwhelming support to reauthorize Mayoral Control of public schools. The city immediately took steps to appoint a temporary Board of Education – reverting to a system from more than seven years ago.
The board, which is made up of two appointees of the Mayor and one from each of the five borough presidents, met early on Wednesday morning, July 1, and quickly voted to keep Joel Klein as Chancellor of the newly-constituted board.
