NEW YORK—More than 6,000 teachers’ jobs are on the chopping block based on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new fiscal year 2012 budget, which begins in July of this year, and his four-year financial plan for the city. Bloomberg spoke from the Blue Room at City Hall on Thursday afternoon.
Despite the cuts, Mayor Bloomberg insisted, “Education is our number one priority.”
The mayor met with United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew in the morning before his speech.
Defending the cuts, the mayor pointed to Albany for losses in education dollars, saying that when the recession hit, the city tightened its belt but that the state did not.
“We don’t deserve to be penalized for our responsible management,” he said.
UFT’s Mulgrew has cried foul over the proposed layoffs.
“Two months ago, the mayor projected the same number of teachers being laid off yet there’s a billion dollars more in the city budget, so his complete insistence on teacher layoffs seems bizarre to us at this point,” said Mulgrew, according to NY1. “We think it’s more a political game and scaring people, which is really not what we need at this point in time.”
“It is not for lack of city funds,” the mayor countered. The mayor asserted that the monies that have been put back into the budget are as a result of his administration’s fiscal prudence and are there to make up for state and federal reductions of $1 billion and $850 million, respectively, in education aid.
The 6,166 teaching positions will be eliminated, 4,666 through layoffs and 1,500 jobs through attrition. That’s around 8 percent of all the teachers in the city, according to NY1.
The mayor’s plan states that it is imperative that the state approve the city’s plan to modify the “Last-In-First-Out” or LIFO method of labor management at the Department of Education to ensure the quality of education provided to the city’s schoolchildren. Under LIFO, the newest teachers in, who are also the lowest paid, are laid off first, regardless of how good they might be.
The mayor said that it is not a question of attempting to go after the highest paid teachers, explaining that when a teacher is laid off the principal of the school is given a credit for the average amount of a salary of his teachers, not the actual amount of the teacher’s salary that has been laid off.
The city budget for education in 2012 will be $2.1 billion more than 2011, with a total budget of $13.6 billion.
Even with teacher layoffs there is still a $600 million gap in the mayor’s budget.
The mayor is suggesting three basic actions to aid in eliminating the budget gap, all aimed at the state’s contributions, including equity in state revenue sharing funds, immediate reform of the variable supplement fund (a state mandated $12,000 supplement that the city pays to certain employees), and asking state leaders to restore $200 million in education funds to New York City schools that have been cut from the state budget.
If the state does not come through, the mayor said “we will just have to share the pain across all agencies.”
The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) will eliminate 16,624 child care seats “due to federal funds not keeping pace with increased costs of care,” according to the Financial Plan Summary from the Office of Management and Budget.
Looking at some positive financial indicators, the mayor touted the rise in tourism in 2010 to 48.7 million after a slight dip in city tourists in 2009. He also said that the city has the lowest commercial real estate vacancy rate in the United States at about 10.5 percent in Manhattan.
Despite the cuts, Mayor Bloomberg insisted, “Education is our number one priority.”
The mayor met with United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew in the morning before his speech.
Defending the cuts, the mayor pointed to Albany for losses in education dollars, saying that when the recession hit, the city tightened its belt but that the state did not.
“We don’t deserve to be penalized for our responsible management,” he said.
UFT’s Mulgrew has cried foul over the proposed layoffs.
“Two months ago, the mayor projected the same number of teachers being laid off yet there’s a billion dollars more in the city budget, so his complete insistence on teacher layoffs seems bizarre to us at this point,” said Mulgrew, according to NY1. “We think it’s more a political game and scaring people, which is really not what we need at this point in time.”
“It is not for lack of city funds,” the mayor countered. The mayor asserted that the monies that have been put back into the budget are as a result of his administration’s fiscal prudence and are there to make up for state and federal reductions of $1 billion and $850 million, respectively, in education aid.
The 6,166 teaching positions will be eliminated, 4,666 through layoffs and 1,500 jobs through attrition. That’s around 8 percent of all the teachers in the city, according to NY1.
The mayor’s plan states that it is imperative that the state approve the city’s plan to modify the “Last-In-First-Out” or LIFO method of labor management at the Department of Education to ensure the quality of education provided to the city’s schoolchildren. Under LIFO, the newest teachers in, who are also the lowest paid, are laid off first, regardless of how good they might be.
The mayor said that it is not a question of attempting to go after the highest paid teachers, explaining that when a teacher is laid off the principal of the school is given a credit for the average amount of a salary of his teachers, not the actual amount of the teacher’s salary that has been laid off.
The city budget for education in 2012 will be $2.1 billion more than 2011, with a total budget of $13.6 billion.
Even with teacher layoffs there is still a $600 million gap in the mayor’s budget.
The mayor is suggesting three basic actions to aid in eliminating the budget gap, all aimed at the state’s contributions, including equity in state revenue sharing funds, immediate reform of the variable supplement fund (a state mandated $12,000 supplement that the city pays to certain employees), and asking state leaders to restore $200 million in education funds to New York City schools that have been cut from the state budget.
If the state does not come through, the mayor said “we will just have to share the pain across all agencies.”
The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) will eliminate 16,624 child care seats “due to federal funds not keeping pace with increased costs of care,” according to the Financial Plan Summary from the Office of Management and Budget.
Looking at some positive financial indicators, the mayor touted the rise in tourism in 2010 to 48.7 million after a slight dip in city tourists in 2009. He also said that the city has the lowest commercial real estate vacancy rate in the United States at about 10.5 percent in Manhattan.
