A DEMAND FOR PAYMENT NOW
The frustration and outrage we are all experiencing about the delays in the payment of executed stipulations has reached an absolute boiling point in our office and we agree with parents who can no longer tolerate this unjust and unacceptable situation.
Our office has been in contact with every administrator in the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Legal Services demanding immediate payment of these executed stipulations. We have spoken to the general counsel for Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller, on several occasions and have pleaded for an immediate resolution to this untenable situation. We have had a direct conversation with the Mayor, apprising him about the financial devastation this has been causing to parents of children with disabilities. Although sympathetic, he did nothing. We have been getting in touch with everyone we know—as far and wide as the New York Times as well as other press organizations—to expose this debacle and we implore all parents, educators, concerned citizens and anyone interested in, or affected by, this gross miscarriage of justice to reach out to their contacts and give voice to the plight and the struggles parents are enduring to receive legally binding payments that are unquestionably due and owing.
At this very moment, we are writing a letter requesting that the Education Committee of the City Council convene to address and firmly resolve the issue of delayed payments. With the aid and support of New York City Council Member Daniel R. Garodnick, who has worked tirelessly on behalf of the rights of families and children, we will leave no stone unturned in our quest to remedy this fiasco.