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With just weeks before students and teachers disperse for the summer, principals are still without any official word of how much money they’ll be working with next year.

“No word of budget at this point. Not even summer school. I have no idea what’s going [on],” said a high school principal, who reported being told originally that the budget would arrive at the end of May, and then the first week of June. “I have no idea on what next year looks like at this point.”

Every year, the city enters a budget for each school into Galaxy, the Department of Education’s budgeting data system. Principals use the system to allocate those funds for the next year according to their needs and also city, state, and federal regulations.

But because of up-in-the-air negotiations over the city’s budget, which are centering on Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to lay off 4,100 teachers, school-level budgets haven’t yet been uploaded. That means principals don’t know even how many teachers they will be able to afford next year.

Last year, principals received their budget June 2 — and that was late, then-Chancellor Joel Klein told principals at the time. “Even though Albany has yet to pass its own budget, we can wait no longer to release school budgets,” Klein said. “We know you need as much time as possible to decide how best to spend the dollars available to your school.” (more…)