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May 5, 2008
Hon. Robert Jackson
250 Broadway
Rm. 1747
New York, NY 10007
re: elimination of funding for JROTC in the FY 2009 budget
Dear Councilmember Jackson:
On behalf of Brooklyn For Peace, I write to ask that the Education Committee of the New York City Council act to eliminate the approximately $2 million of taxpayer funds that will be used to support the JROTC program in the FY 2009 budget for the Department of Education. New York City's resource starved educational system can find far better uses for $2 million of taxpayer money than supporting a program whose basic goal is to promote militarism and foster sending New York City youth to participate in the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq.
While we have been unable to locate the precise budget line proposed for taxpayer support of JROTC in the FY 2009 budget, attached you will find information breaking out the $1,872,636 appropriated in the FY 2008 budget. The $2 million represents a reasonable extrapolation from last year's information.
As the attached indicates, the Federal government is paying slightly less than half the costs, apparently including all the fringe benefits, of this program. The reason that the Federal government is paying the 47 JROTC teachers their fringe benefits is because they are not employees of the NYC DOE, but rather employees of the Federal government. We believe that this sets a dangerous precedent of having individuals who do not possess the requisite qualifications to be a teacher in the DOE engaged in teaching.
But more importantly, JROTC should be just about the lowest priority for the NYC DOE in the current budget. You know better than most how under resourced the City's schools have been and continue to be, whether it be for classrooms, textbooks, teacher salaries, full time kindergarten — the list of desperate funding needs is long, and growing. If the JROTC program is so vital to the Federal government, it should be willing to fund it, rather than making this yet another unfunded mandate on our municipality.
The overwhelming majority of NYC taxpayers have no idea that they are funding JROTC, and we submit that if they were informed of this fact, they would act to oppose such funding. Brooklyn For Peace believes that this is an important issue that is worthy of a public hearing, after which we are sure that the Committee will strip this unnecessary subsidy towards militarism from the FY 2009 budget, and we ask that the Committee promptly schedule such a hearing.
I will take the liberty of following up with your office.
Yours for Peace
David Tykulsker, Vice Chair
cc: Christine Quinn, Speaker
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