Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy warned members of the Board of Education yesterday that their recently approved overhaul of bilingual education programs might have to be postponed because City Hall has not allocated enough money to pay for the changes.

The warning is the latest round of a bitter battle of words between Mr. Levy and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani over the city’s education budget. Mr. Levy says the current budget leaves the school system with $120 million less, after accounting for inflation and mandated spending increases, for the coming year than it had in the year that just ended.

Mr. Giuliani, who this month offered to have his budget staff help the Board of Education find potential cuts in its administrative ranks, responded that he found it “amazing” that the Board of Education cannot find enough money for its programs in a $12 billion budget.

Just last week, Mr. Levy told district superintendents to prepare contingency plans for $120 million in budget cuts but said that administrative costs should be cut before classroom programs.

Yesterday, Mr. Levy expanded his warning to classroom programs, including the $75 million bilingual reform approved unanimously by the board in February. The new program would expand dual-language programs, require more new teachers, increase teacher training and give parents more control over what programs their children take.

In a memorandum to the seven board members, released by his office yesterday, Mr. Levy said, “Until funding for these programs is secured ? the current budget does not include any additional support for English Language Learners ? we cannot be certain we can implement the program as proposed.”

Also at risk are recently recommended changes in mathematics instruction, Mr. Levy said, which “will be limited by the absence of incremental resources.”

Mr. Levy also said that he has told his staff to study the way federal Title I money is allocated to city schools, a system which he said drives money out of the schools that need it most. He would like his staff to see whether they can direct more money to those needy schools. Because of peculiarities of the poverty estimates on which those allocations are based, schools in the Bronx with the highest numbers of poor students will receive $552 per student in federal Title I money in the coming year, down from $597 per student last year. To contrast, schools in Staten Island with high concentrations of poor students will receive $1,710 per student in the coming year, up from $1,270 last year.



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