. . . and wherein the PTA picks up the slack:

The auctioneer came on with a bold pitch, trying to get the bidders to open their wallets as wide as possible.

“I want you to prove to the world that we’re not in a slowdown economy,” he pleaded with his audience, the parents of Public School 41 in Greenwich Village.

The first item was a large canvas painted with bright flowers, made by the kindergarten class. The opening bid was set at $500.

“Come on parents, prove that you love your children,” he said, his laughter not stopping a few winces in the audience.

Sold, for $1,100.

New York schools have withstood budget cuts of $180 million this year, and are facing more, giving a renewed urgency to the school auction season, in full swing across the city. Although many parent associations hold fund-raising events, auctions are largely a phenomenon of schools in affluent areas, where parents have the connections to garner desirable donations — like a meal at AquaGrill, a Botox “house call” or a behind-the-scenes tour of a television show — and the money to bid on them.

At P.S. 41’s auction, held at the Puck Building in SoHo, Michele Farinet, the parent coordinator for the school, stepped up at the request of the auctioneer. She exhorted parents to put up their paddles for a special “fund a cause,” which she said could be anything from books to tables and chairs.

“There are budget cuts this year, but we are going to make sure that we give the kids what they need before the mayor and the chancellor take it away from them,” she said, trying to fire up the bidders.

Her voice rose with her pleas: “When the mayor comes knocking at 11 o’clock on a Friday night and says, ‘Guess what, principals, you are going to lose 10 percent,’ at least our principal will know that our parents have done this!”

Modeled after events at private schools, public school auctions have become increasingly elaborate in recent years, in settings that have moved from school cafeterias and local pizza shops to deluxe locations like the Puck Building and Guastavino’s on the Upper East Side. The events raise crucial dollars for computers and foreign language classes, art supplies and teaching assistants, dance instruction, counting blocks for math, white boards — anything that parents might consider essential but that the standard allocation from the city’s Department of Education does not cover.