Sheldon Silver: Bloomberg Doesn't Need To Do Layoffs

The Mayor of Money is claiming the state budget requires that he lay off thousands of teachers.

Not true says Assembly Speaker Silver:

ALBANY - Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had a tough message for Mayor Bloomberg: Don't blame us for any layoffs.

Silver says Hizzoner's claims that the new state budget cuts will lead to city teacher layoffs is pure fiction.

"The mayor has announced layoffs and layoffs and layoffs," Silver said after adopting the austere $132.5 billion budget.

"He did that before even the governor proposed a budget [in February]. So this budget didn't lead him to do anything," Silver said. He said, given the state's economy, the city did OK under the new budget.

"Under the economic climate, it was a fair budget to the city," Silver said. "It was a fair budget across the state, basically."

Like Gov. Cuomo, Silver said the city has enough "rainy day" reserves that can be used to make up for cuts from the state budget.

"It's raining in New York," Silver said. "It's been raining now for two years and whatever you have put aside, now is the time to use it. These are the days that they were put aside for."

Silly Sheldon Silver - the Mayor of Money knows, whether it rains or shines, it's time to lay off teachers and spend the rainy day funds on technology for classrooms so that more testing can be done so that eventually even MORE teachers can be fired.