Cuomo Threatens Funding for Non-Compliant Schools, Cities

(Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened to withhold funding for schools and local governments that fail to comply with the state’s shutdown orders.

The state is sending a warning to New York City, Orange County, Rockland County, the Town of Ramapo, and the village of Spring Valley. If schools in these areas are found to be operating contrary to the state’s shutdown rules, they will lose funding, as will the local governments that do not shut the schools down.

“We could impound all funds,” Cuomo said when asked how much the fine would be.

Statewide positivity was at 0.95% as of Tuesday, not including hot spots, and 1.1% including them, he said. The micro-clusters, also known as red zones, are at 6.2% positivity. “That number is actually lower than many statewide infection rates right now,” Cuomo said on Wednesday.

The state is continuing to focus on microclusters in Orthodox Jewish communities, where many people are not abiding by state health laws, Cuomo said.

“If I had to do this all over again on lessons learned, I would have had the state take over or hire statewide enforcement, because the enforcement from the local governments is very uneven, especially when it’s politically sensitive,” Cuomo said. “And that’s what we’re running into with a lot of these Ultra-Orthodox communities, who are also very politically powerful.”

The state has identified large religious gatherings in hotspot areas and schools that have continued with in-person classes in violation of state public-health laws, he said. Under state rules released last week, all schools in what have been identified as “red zones” must be closed for in-person classes, and places of worship in those clusters can only operate at 25% capacity with 10 people at most. This has especially been a problem in Brooklyn as well as Orange and Rockland Counties, he said.

Punishing Violators

The state will withhold funding from schools, including yeshivas, that are found to be violating the public-health law, he said. Funding will also be withheld from local governments that do not enforce the rules.

“I don’t like to do that -- budgets are tough all across the board,” he said. “I don’t know how else to get them to actually do the enforcement they need to do, so hopefully that will motivate them.”

Schools that have been identified as having violated the law will be served Wednesday and told to close, Cuomo said. The state will begin withholding funding until “the matter is resolved to our satisfaction, and we do not know at this time when that will be,” he said.

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