Supreme Court Justice John Fusco has ruled that city Department of Education was wrong to deny yellow-bus service to seventh- and eighth-graders on Staten Island. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If you thought a big court loss might induce Mayor Michael Bloomberg to back down in the fight over school bus cuts on Staten Island, think again. "We will argue...
Supreme Court Justice John Fusco has ruled that city Department of Education was wrong to deny yellow-bus service to seventh- and eighth-graders on Staten Island.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If you thought a big court loss might induce Mayor Michael Bloomberg to back down in the fight over school bus cuts on Staten Island, think again.
"We will argue all the way to the Supreme Court" for the right to make budget cuts, Bloomberg said yesterday.
"We have to balance the budget, and sometimes the judges just don't understand," the mayor said, speaking to reporters at City Hall.
That was in response to state Supreme Court Justice John Fusco's ruling Monday that the city took away yellow-bus service from thousands of Island seventh- and eighth-graders this year "without concern for the welfare and safety of the affected students."
Fusco ruled in favor of the Island parents and legislators, led by City Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore), who sued the city over the bus cuts in June.
The Department of Education vowed to appeal the decision, which means the case could drag on for at least a few more months. The agency said it needs to eliminate the bus variance for the Island to save about $1.7 million -- the DOE generally provides transportation for students only through sixth grade.
"This is a relatively small sacrifice compared to the teachers that we would lose. And you can say it's a small amount of money, but it is not a small amount of money to the 20-25 teachers we would have to lay off," Bloomberg said.
"We are going to have to start making 'either/or' decisions. Every one of them is going to be controversial. If you were to have judges stop a number of them, the consequences would be disastrous for the city, because then you have no choice but to go to what you are trying to prevent," he added.
Fusco would disagree. In his decision, he acknowledged the DOE had to make tough choices to cut its budget. However, the testimony and evidence in the lawsuit proved to him the agency's decision to cut the school variance was "made on assumptions without a factual basis to support those assumptions."
With that court decision as leverage, Ignizio and others were hoping to resolve the issue diplomatically. The mayor's comments yesterday would seem to have scotched that idea.
"The mayor continues to have a tin ear when it comes to Staten Island-specific issues," Ignizio said.
"This is not a budget issue. No other borough would tolerate this amount of neglect when it comes to public safety. And that's what this is about -- public safety."