Exclusive | NYC middle school paid $20K in a week to one restaurant

Call it pork barrel binging.

A Big Apple middle school shoveled nearly $20,000 in a single week to a Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn for orders of mountains of pork, chicken, oxtail and other soul-food staples — all on the taxpayers’ dime, invoices obtained by The Post show.

Brownsville Collaborative Middle School doled out $600 for trays of bacon and sausage, another $600 for scrambled eggs and a cool $480 for oxtail from Fusion East for dozens of people — part of a massive $745,000 tab racked up at the eatery by the Department of Education.

Coffee and tea cost $200 each while the orange juice cost $300, according to the paperwork.

The middle school made 13 catering orders to Fusion East on school days between Aug. 28 and Sept. 6 of 2024 — most of which exceeded city spending limits, officials said.

The Caribbean eatery, which offers a  customer-pleasing $5 special, provided seven lunches and six breakfasts during that span that contributed to the overall payment of $745,000 the Department of Education funneled to Fusion East in the past fiscal year that raised red flags with the city comptroller’s office.

The middle school, led by principal Gregory Jackson — who was arrested on drinking and driving charges in May — spent $2,930 on breakfast orders for about 100 people on two separate occasions, according to the invoices.

The orders included bacon and sausage, scrambled eggs, waffles and home fries, the invoices show.

The coffee and tea boxes cost $200 while the orange juice was a $300 expense.

About 100 people also feasted on lunches with two separate orders running up a bill of $2,410.

Those orders consisted of chicken and whiting that each cost $640, as well as rice and peas, mac and cheese, and collard greens, the invoices show.

Oxtails, jerk chicken and other sides was among a more modest order that only rang up the middle school for $830 for 50 people, according to another purchase order.

It’s unclear what events the catering was meant for — the orders were listed only as going toward “school events. The first official day of school for students didn’t take place until Sept. 5, 2024.

The DOE did not respond to a Post email asking why the food, which was worth $19,998, was ordered — and who ate it.

The department previously admitted the middle school violated spending limits and said the school’s leadership and administrative teams underwent procurement training as a result of the high spending.

Fusion East owner Andrew Walcott, who is part of a program that connects minority and women-owned businesses with government agencies, said in an interview Monday that it took nearly eight months for the middle school to make those 13 payments.

Walcott said he had to email various officials and even threatened to go to the inspector general for the DOE before the payments were finally made.

“But it was 8 months non-payment and then they paid,” he said.

Jackson, the principal, faced legal trouble on top of the high spending last school year when he was arrested and charged with DWI in Brooklyn on May 5.

He allegedly slammed into several parked cars and then overturned on the night of May 5, police said according to a past Daily News report.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges and has a court appearance set for Aug. 21.

His attorney, Paul Prestia, declined comment Wednesday.