Governor Andrew Cuomo pledged to yank funding to some ultra-Orthodox yeshivas on Wednesday, citing his growing exasperation with the city's failure to enforce the shutdown orders for religious schools in coronavirus cluster zones.
"For the schools that have been identified as violating the closure order, they will be served today with a notice mandating they close," Cuomo said during a call with reporters. "We’re withholding funding until the matter is resolved to our satisfaction."
Reiterating his disappointment in Mayor Bill de Blasio's administrative abilities, the governor added that the state could move to "impound all funds" for New York City if the situation is not rectified.
"More than anything I want them to do enforcement," Cuomo said. "I don't know how else to motivate them."
Last week, Cuomo ordered roughly 300 public and private schools in "red" and "orange" zones to switch to all-remote learning. But Gothamist found on Tuesday that the restrictions were widely ignored in the ultra-Orthodox stronghold of Borough Park.
Two people told Gothamist that they called 311 to report yeshivas that were open in Kew Gardens and Gravesend — both of them hot spots — and never received a response.
A young man boarding a bus in Borough Park on Tuesday morning
A mayoral spokesperson said that city inspectors with the Health Department and Office of Special Enforcement have issued fines to just three schools for violating the governor's shutdown order. A source in City Hall confirmed that yeshivas in Borough Park were the subject of the fines, which could total $15,000 each. The Mayor's Office declined to identify the schools.
Members of the Borough Park community said that investigators were not even scratching the surface of the widespread non-compliance.
One parent told Gothamist that nearly every yeshiva in the neighborhood remained open this week. He said his six children continued attending in-person schooling on Wednesday, even after the city was made aware of the problem.
"Like nothing ever happened," said the source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from the schools.
Cuomo said on Wednesday that the ultra-Orthodox community's political power has left city officials skittish about enforcing the lockdown measures.
"The enforcement from the local governments is very uneven, especially when it’s politically sensitive," Cuomo said. "Thats what we're running into with these ultra-Orthodox communities, who are also really politically powerful."
Cuomo has steadily increased funding for the yeshivas throughout his time as governor. It's unclear how the state would go about slashing short-term funding for the schools, and a spokesperson for the State Department of Education declined to comment.
Despite enrolling only 4% of the state’s students, yeshivas receive a disproportionate amount of state and city funding as compared to other types of K-12 schools, according to a report published by the Orthodox-led advocacy group Young Advocates For Fair Education.
"If the governor were to follow through on his threat of taking the state’s portion of the funding, I don't believe these yeshivas would survive," Naftuli Moster, founder of the founder of YAFFED, told Gothamist.
While the exact amount of funding is not known, the city and state are believed to disperse hundreds of millions to Jewish private schools each year.
That taxpayer funding was the subject of a messy four-year investigation by the city, which concluded a majority of the schools were not providing the necessary secular instruction required by state law. A separate independent investigation found the probe was delayed due to "political horse-trading" by de Blasio.
Moster, whose group pushes for more secular instruction in yeshivas, said the governor should have moved to defund the schools for not meeting state requirements years ago.
"The city and state have taken such a hands-off approach to [yeshivas] that they’re trying to play catch up now," he added. "They seem clueless and totally caught off guard with regard to enforcing anything within these institutions."
