Big Apple education officials funneled $745,000 to a single Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn over the past year – with numerous orders for jerk chicken and other cultural favorites blowing past spending limits, officials said.
And some $618,000 of the Department of Education‘s massive tab was racked up by orders from one middle school to Fusion East — an East New York eatery that’s in a program that steers business toward minority and women-owned shops, officials said.
But Fusion East’s politically connected owner Andrew Walcott insisted Monday his food and service is worth the loyalty from the DOE — though he claimed the middle school tried to stiff him after he helped bail administrators out in a time of need.
Comptroller Brad Lander’s office raised the alarm about the hefty spending earlier this year, asking the DOE about the shocking figures, according to a May 30 letter obtained by The Post.
About $1.17 million has been spent since 2022 with nearly $750,000 this past year on Fusion East, according to the comptroller’s numbers.
On several occasions there were invoices signed by the principal at the Brownsville school that blew past what city officials are allowed to spend on catering, city officials said.
“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,” a city comptroller spokesperson said in a statement.
“The three-quarters of a million dollars wasted on unallowable catering could have made a huge difference for teachers and students who pay for school supplies out-of-pocket.”
The DOE only spent about $5,300 in 2022 at Fusion East, but that number skyrocketed the following year to more than $81,000, according to the May correspondence between the comptroller and DOE.
The figure then jumped to $470,686 before reaching the massive new amount in 2025 that was first reported by AM New York.
The DOE claimed in the May 30 letter the spike in spending is aligned with an effort to flow more funds to minority and women-owned businesses that is pushed by Mayor Eric Adams.
Fusion East has been an approved vendor in the program for the DOE for about eight years, predating the Adams administration.
Walcott, a US Air Force veteran and lawyer, told The Post the DOE’s top item was a $5 special that can include a protein, like jerk chicken, and sides. The orders go toward daily staff meals, student lunches and school events.
“This is definitely one of the more popular items for schools,” he said. “The $5 special. They order like two or three hundred of them at a time.”
He claimed the school didn’t pay him for months after he came through for them in a “jam.”
After another vendor dropped the ball for the middle school, Fusion East rushed to help the same day with a food truck and chef in position the past school year.
“After they placed 13 orders for roughly $20,000 worth of orders the principal stopped returning our calls,” Walcott said. “They stopped paying. It took about eight months to get paid.”
Walcott serves on the mayor’s Small Business Advisory Commission and Veterans Advisory Board, and he also serves on the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce executive board, but the restaurateur denied his civic involvement has anything to do with his restaurant’s big payday.
“There is no political connection. You earn it the old fashioned way,” said Walcott, who is opening a second spot in Brownsville.
“This is the same food my mother used to make. I wanted to make a restaurant that blended the culture of people around here. We give the people, we give the school what they want and that’s why we’re a success.”
Payments in 10 of the 13 invoices made out to Brownsville middle school near the end of August 2024 exceeded the per-person amount allowed by the comptroller’s office, according to AM NY.
The DOE admitted in its back-and-forth with the city comptroller’s office that Brownsville Collaborative violated guidelines and as a result had staffers in the building undergo training.
“Fiscal responsibility is a priority for the Adams administration, and as soon as we were notified of this imprudent spending, we took steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again by implementing the necessary training for this school,” City Hall said in a statement to The Post.
Read the full article here
