NYC DOE blasted for pay hikes to deputies accused of misconduct
Some city education leaders are fuming about fat raises given to two educrats after an internal probe found they had committed misconduct — and blasting the secretive way Chancellor David Banks and First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg dole out salary increases.
“There’s anger towards Banks and Weisberg, and questions about how they shell out raises,” said a source familiar with city Department of Education personnel decisions.
Among those offended is Carolyn Quintana, the deputy chancellor of teaching and learning, the insider said.
Quintana leads Banks’ top initiative, to improve how kids are taught reading — and had complained that his former deputy chancellor for leadership, Desmond Blackburn, was getting $265,000 a year, while her salary is $241,000.
Two other female deputy chancellors also get $241,000.
Blackburn, a Florida recruit with no NYC experience, quit his gig after one year.
Banks replaced him with Danika Rux — and hired her husband, Shawn Rux, for another top spot after he agreed to drop his work as an education consultant.
Quintana’s request for equal pay was “ignored,” the source said.
Her ire heightened when The Post revealed Weisberg gave big raises to Chief Enrollment Officer Sarah Kleinhandler and her senior executive soon after a DOE investigation substantiated misconduct allegations against them.
“They denied Carolyn Quintana, but decided to give raises to two people accused of wrongdoing,” the insider said.
Amanda Lurie, senior executive director in the Office of Student Enrollment, was a chronic no-show, barely visited the “family welcome centers” she supervised, and peddled apparel on Poshmark during DOE hours, the agency’s Office of Special Investigations concluded in late February, according to former OSI investigator Jonathan May, who conducted the probe.
Kleinhandler failed to supervise Lurie or address longstanding complaints about her, the probe found.
Weeks later, inexplicably, Weisberg named Lurie a “senior advisor” in his office, and granted her a pay hike from $199,118 to $208,000 a year.
Kleinhandler got a raise from $204,106 to $220,000.
The Post report led DOE lawyers to question Weisberg about his handling of the OSI report. Lurie was then terminated.
Currently, some 95 DOE employees in central and district offices make more than $200,000 a year, records obtained by The Post show. Banks gets $363,346.
Experts call for more transparency in the awarding of pay hikes.
“This is public money and taxpayers have a right to know what the criteria are for leadership spending at the DOE, especially at a time of budget tightening,” said David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor.
“This kind of jockeying at central only adds to distractions and confusion, with leadership arguing over salaries rather than student matters,” he added.
“Before I’d pay either of them $241,000 or $265,000, I’d want to know what exactly they feel accountable for,” said Eric Nadelstern, the deputy chancellor of school support and instruction under ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“The argument for a raise,” he said, “should be here’s what I’ve done to improve the performance of kids.”
Quintana did not reply to a request for comment.
DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said, “Salaries of senior leadership were set based on portfolios of work and represent the hard work our senior leadership team puts into supporting schools every day.”
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Styer claimed the raises for Kleinhandler and Lurie “occurred prior to the OSI report.” But internal records show Lurie’s raise was approved on March 28 — months after the OSI report was sent to Weisberg. Kleinhandler’s raise was finalized last December 22, near the end of the probe.
Both raises were backdated to September 1, 2022.
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