The Board of Education directly controls the schools budget, not the city council or the mayor’s office.

I think the question we should be asking is why the BOE can’t get basic capital projects done despite having the ability to independently raise the school tax levy.

I suspect the answer is that adding HVAC to all the old school buildings would be very expensive (probably way more than what the city will spend on this museum) and that raising school taxes to pay for it is not politically feasible, especially considering the blowback that the BOE has faced from its recent tax increases.