EXCLUSIVE: Why did NYC Department of Education spend $745,000 at a single Brooklyn restaurant last fiscal year?

The NYC Department of Education approved spending close to $750,000 on catering expenditures at one Brooklyn restaurant in fiscal year 2025, according to expense records and government communications obtained by amNewYork — raising concerns from City Comptroller Brad Lander over mayoral oversight of the city’s public school system.

In a March 5 letter to the DOE, obtained by amNewYork, Deputy Comptroller for Contracts and Procurement Charlette Hamamgian wrote that the Comptroller’s office had been made aware of a series of 13 consecutive invoices from Fusion East for events between Aug. 28 and Sept. 6, 2024. The 13 invoices — sent to the Brownsville Collaborative Middle School in Brooklyn — totaled to $19,998.

Upon further review of expenses approved for food from Fusion East, the Comptroller’s office discovered over $1.4 million in expenses to the restaurant since 2016, according to expense records and communications obtained by amNewYork. Total expenses saw a marked increase in fiscal year 2023, when the department approved $81,637 in purchase orders to the restaurant, and then again in fiscal year 2024, when the department approved $470,686 in purchase orders. In 2025, approved purchase orders totaled $745,823, according to financial documents obtained by amNewYork.

Money on the menu in Brooklyn

Responding on May 30 to a May 9 letter from the Comptroller’s office raising concern about the “significant spike in purchase orders to Fusion East” between fiscal years 2022 and 2025, the DOE wrote that the “increase in spend is aligned with the mayor’s citywide goal of increasing the utilization of MWBE suppliers for goods and services,” according to the department’s response, which was obtained by amNewYork.

Fusion East, a Caribbean and soul food restaurant in Brooklyn, is a Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise DOE vendor, meaning the restaurant contracts with the government in a citywide effort to increase investment in MWBEs.

The payments for breakfast and lunch in 10 out of the 13 invoices made out to Brownsville Collaborative at the end of August 2024 exceeded the per-person amount allowed by NYC Comptroller Directive #6, Hamamgian wrote in her March 5 letter to the DOE, which requested a response by March 15.

Fusion East in Brooklyn. Google Maps

According to financial documents and communications obtained by amNewYork, the Brownsville Collaborative’s payments to Fusion East are part of a larger pattern of approved DOE expenditures to the restaurant that exceed the amount deemed acceptable by the Comptroller.

In a March 18 response to Hamamgian from DOE Chief Procurement Officer Elisheba Lewi, the department acknowledged “that Brownsville Collaborative violated regulations that govern the purchasing process” as laid out in the DOE’s Standard Operating Procedures and the Comptroller’s Directive #6.

Lewi wrote that the department would mandate a staff training at Brownsville Collaborative about purchasing procedures and require the school to “create and submit a plan for strengthening internal controls.”

“Financial responsibility is critical to the New York City Public Schools, and we worked closely with the Comptroller’s team to respond to these concerns,” DOE Deputy Press Secretary Jenna Lyle wrote in a statement to amNewYork. “We are the largest school district in the nation, and large purchase amounts are not uncommon in a system of over 1,600 schools and nearly one million students. No non-contracted procurement rules were violated, but we conducted our due diligence and took all necessary action here, including training this staff to avoid this issue in the future.”

Though the Comptroller’s office had discovered initial violations at Brownsville Collaborative, it raised a broader concern to the department about Fusion East invoices to various public schools — a pattern the department appeared to decline to review on a broader scale in its communication with the Comptroller’s office.

Brownsville Collaborative Middle School in Brooklyn. Google Maps

“While the DOE has not conducted an agencywide review of all Fusion East transactions, our standard internal procedures include regular oversight, training sessions, and periodic audits across all schools and vendors,” the DOE’s May 30 letter to the Comptroller reads. “The DOE will review future transactions with Fusion East LLC to ensure compliance with Comptroller Directive 6.”

The DOE did not confirm the amount of approved expenditures to Fusion East in fiscal year 2025 in time for publication. However, the department’s May 30 response to the Comptroller does not dispute the office’s charge that schools had spent, at the time, “more than $618,324,” responding that the “increase in spending” over the years is “aligned” with aims to support MWBEs.

Lander’s office, however, is concerned that standard procedures have so far failed to limit excessive spending in the department.

“When over half a million dollars of taxpayer money goes to a single restaurant, the lack of Mayoral oversight over City agencies like DOE is glaring,” Comptroller spokesperson Sara Azcona-Miller wrote in a statement to amNewYork.

In a statement to amNewYork, a City Hall spokesperson wrote that City Hall works “closely with the New York City Public Schools each and every day, and the results of our oversight of the schools speaks for itself — we are making historic progress in reading and math, expanding early childhood education programs, and reducing class sizes, just to name a few.”

“We work closely with our schools to maintain financial responsibility and a balanced budget, and they have addressed this situation appropriately,” the spokesperson wrote.

When reached for comment about the expenditures, Brownsville Collaborative Principal Gregory Jackson directed amNewYork to the DOE.

Fusion East founder and owner Andrew Walcott did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.