Kicking the Can With Recusals
Another day, another Freedom of Information Act disclosure at the New York City Department of Education (DOE). This one was a bombshell: In July, after the school year had ended, independent hearing officers at the DOE had case loads ranging from 70 to 722. So the evidence shows that they are overworked — but they’re not handling it the way you or I have to handle being overworked.
Independent hearing officers have the ability to refuse — or recuse themselves from — a case. Lately, advocates have noticed an uptick in recusals taking place. So far for our clients, it's been relatively painless. That’s because a lot of the recusals occur within a set, 30-day period during which nothing can happen. (This waiting period was intended to protect small school districts.)
I can’t help but get the impression, though, that hearing officers today are recusing themselves because they haven't received a significant pay raise in years, and they're not likely to get one — and they're basically saying, "I don't care."
I actually met a hearing officer who complained to me about other hearing officers taking all of the money out of cases — and then recusing themselves.
Just like a math student can solve for x by looking at how the rest of the equation operates, it’s possible to take an educated guess about the DOE’s compensation scheme by looking at how they handle cases. The most likely scenario is that hearing officers receive a:
large fee for accepting the case;
larger fee for the first status conference; and
much smaller fee for every other appearance.
Gottlieb & Gottlieb recently worked on a case that was bounced back and forth between the same two hearing officers for weeks. It makes you wonder if either of them had any incentive at all to look at the case. This is how people fall through the cracks at the DOE.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506