Why Doesn't The UFT Bring Up The Planned Technology Spending In The Budget Fight?

The NY Post reported that Mulgrew and the UFT declared war on Bloomberg's budget cuts and layoffs yesterday, vowing to fight them to the end.

But as usual, the "Fight Smarter" UFT seems to be fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

Mulgrew continues to bring up the supposed surplus the city has and pointedly calls for the mayor to use $270 million of that surplus to stave off layoffs.

But Chancellor Walcott says the mayor has already used parts of the surplus to keep the layoff numbers lower than they could be.

Is that true?

Who the hell knows.

The problem with fighting this battle by using the "surplus" as the prime weapon is that Bloomberg can say he has already used part of it to replace cuts in state and federal aid and the rest of it to pay debt for 2012, sound reasonable and leave it to the UFT and other opponents of his budget to prove otherwise.

Beyond that, when Mulgrew demands the mayor use $270 million from the surplus to stave off the layoffs, that amount of money doesn't replace the numbers of teachers Bloomberg plans to get rid of via attrition.

Leonie Haimson points out here that the amount of money needed to keep the teacher corps at current levels (and thus keep class sizes from rising any more than they already have) is $377 million.

So even as Mulgrew calls for the mayor to use $270 million of the surplus toward teacher salaries, it is not enough to keep the system from losing 6,100 teachers.

Why do Mulgrew and Company keep harping on the supposed surplus when there is another pot of money, much more tangible and easy to point to, that is available to be used to stave off layoffs and attrition and is better suited as a political weapon anyway?

The pot of money that I am talking about is that which Bloomberg has slated to spend for technology upgrades in FY 2012 - currently $550 million.

Here's how the UFT should be using the technology expenditures for 2013 as the political weapon in this fight against layoffs:

1. The city has already spent $200 million on tech upgrades in the past few years - why do they need to spend another $550 million in one year alone when they are also laying off so many teachers and cutting individual school budgets so drastically?

2. The news is full of stories of technology consultants stealing the city blind - from the $700 million blown CityTime budget, the $80 million+ stolen by the CityTime consultants, the $3.6 million stolen by DOE computer consultant Willard Lanham and his "cougar" wife, and the amount of money currently being stolen by the DOE consultants Juan Gonzalez has been writing about in the Daily News who are overcharging the city 600% for labor costs. Why should taxpayers have to foot the bill for another $550 million in outside tech consultant contracts when so much has been stolen by outside tech consultants already and the city needs $377 million to keep 6,100 teachers in classrooms?

3. What kind of "education mayor" decides that computers and computer spending are more important than teachers and spending on human capital? A mayor who privileges technology over humanity and wants to ensure that schools have a system in place where students can be tested by computer every few weeks using standardized tests created by the Gates Foundation and Pearson Education, that's who. Is this the kind of education system we want in NYC where humans are replaced by computers and the school year gets divided into six week computerized testing periods? Why should money that is desperately needed to keep teachers in classrooms be used to buy computers and computerized testing materials?

These are the kinds of points the UFT ought to be bringing up in this battle against the Bloomberg budget. I have yet to hear them effectively do this. I have heard Comptroller Liu, Manhattan Borough President Stringer and Public Advocate de Blasio brings these points up more than once. But not the UFT or UFT President Mulgrew.

How come?

In addition, how come the UFT hasn't pointed out that only teachers are being laid off, not central office Tweedies? How come the UFT hasn't pointed out that the central office budget isn't being cut, only individual school budgets are?

How come they aren't using all the available weaponry in this war on the Bloomberg budget, but keep harping on the surplus line over and over? I could understand if the surplus line was the only weapon they had in this fight, but it's not.

Let me summarize once more. They could be bringing up:

1. The $550 million tech upgrade expenditures for 2013
2. The outside consultant and technology tech scandals that have seen one company overcharge the city by $700 million, four outside consultants steal $80 million+ and a DOE consultant steal $3.6 million with the help of major DOE vendors IBM and Verizon. In addition, more tech consultant scandals are emerging every week, with the latest being this doozy in the Daily News involving a DOE official who has retracted testimony he gave about some outside consultants he is overseeing who are overcharging the city 600% for labor costs.
3. The central office, the testing companies, and other Bloomberg cronies like Joel Klein's Wireless Generation aren't being asked to take any cuts - only the individual schools and the teachers are.

Again I ask, how come they aren't using this in the budget battle?

I can only think that this is the usual UFT game of carefully walking a line between making it look like they're fighting the mayor in public so that they continue to have membership support while really half-assing the battle behind the scenes. Weingarten of course was famous for this and while many in the UFT membership and even the education blogosphere think Mulgrew is no Weingarten when it comes to capitulation to the mayor and the DOE, I am not so sure.

I have yet to see the "Fight Smarter" UFT actually fight these battles in a smart way. In the coming days I will take this same issue on with the battle over the TDR's. This is another fight the UFT seems to be half-assing and I can only think that once again they want to make it look like they're fighting this battle to the death in public to make the membership happy while behind the scenes they're a little more cynical about the whole thing.

This is the problem with labor leadership in general across the country and I have yet to figure out if it's because of timidity, stupidity or corruption that the union leadership refuse to take the oligarchs on with all the weapons they have at their disposal.

Whatever the case, Mulgrew can bring the Wisconsin Dem who fought the good fight against Walker to New York all he wants - let me remind my readers that the unions lost that fight in Wisconsin, have lost fights in Indiana, Ohio, and Florida, and are going to lose this fight in New York too unless they stop half-assing this battle.

The message is simple:

Follow the money - take it from the outside consultant contracts, the technology spending, the central office and the testing contracts.

How come only schools, students and teachers have to pay the price of the budget cuts and the tech consultants, the testing execs and companies, and the central office Tweedies don't?