David Banks, New York City’s Schools Chancellor, to Resign

The resignation of Mr. Banks, planned for the end of the year, comes amid a flurry of federal investigations into Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.

David C. Banks, the chancellor of New York City’s public school system, said on Tuesday that he would resign from his post at the end of December.

Mr. Banks, who was the first major appointment of Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, announced his departure only a few weeks after federal agents seized his phone, and as the city government is embroiled in a wide-ranging corruption scandal that has led to the resignation of the police commissioner and the city’s top lawyer. The health commissioner also announced earlier this week that he would be stepping down by the end of the year.

That Mr. Banks, one of the mayor’s closest allies, would announce his departure from the administration at its lowest moment — and in the middle of the school year — underscores the depth of the crisis gripping City Hall. He has said since at least the mid-1990s that leading New York City’s school system, the nation’s largest, was the job he wanted more than any other.

The chancellor’s phone was seized around dawn on Sept. 4, just before the first day of school, as part of an investigation that appears to be focused at least in part on a consulting firm run by his youngest brother.

Mr. Banks’s fiancée, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, also had her phone seized when federal agents appeared at their door. And his younger brother, Philip B. Banks III, the deputy mayor for public safety, also had his phone taken by federal agents.