NEW YORK— New York City lawmakers
reached a budget deal Friday that will avert the
layoffs of about 4,000 teachers partly through
union concessions, but the city won't pay to
replace thousands more public school
instructors who quit or retire this year,
officials said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn gathered with city
lawmakers and the head of the teachers' union
Friday evening to announce the roughly $66
billion deal, which ducks the worst of the
cutbacks the mayor had said would be
unavoidable due to economic hard times and
declining state and federal budgets.
...
Teacher layoffs, frequently threatened in
budget negotiations, have not actually been
approved in the city budget process since the
1970s.
This year, Bloomberg had unsuccessfully
lobbied state lawmakers to overturn teacher
seniority protections, which would have
allowed officials to pick and choose which
teachers received pink slips.
On Friday, Bloomberg said that it was partly
because of the failure of that effort that the
city decided to find extra money to avert the
teacher layoffs.
About one-third the cost of saving the jobs
came from UFT concessions. The union agreed
to cancel teacher study sabbaticals for one
year and to place unassigned instructors in
substitute teaching positions.
Additional funds were found through
administrative cutbacks at the Department of
Education.
Officials had said the layoffs would have
increased class sizes by two or three children,
and elementary schools in poor
neighborhoods would have been the hardest
hit.
As it is, there will be 2,600 fewer teachers in city classrooms next year as teachers who retire or quit will not be replaced.
So class sizes will still rise.
But it is interesting to see Bloomberg actually admit that the city found the extra money to avoid layoffs because Bloomberg couldn't lay off the teachers he wanted to lay off (i.e., senior teachers and ATR's) and save the ones he wanted (cheaper newbies.)
I mean, there it is right in black and white.
Let me quote it again, just in case you missed it:
Teacher layoffs, frequently threatened in budget negotiations, have not actually been approved in the city budget process since the 1970s.This year, Bloomberg had unsuccessfully lobbied state lawmakers to overturn teacher seniority protections, which would have allowed officials to pick and choose which teachers received pink slips.
On Friday, Bloomberg said that it was partly because of the failure of that effort that the city decided to find extra money to avert the teacher layoffs.
The lesson here is, if LIFO is changed the mayor will lay teachers off every year.
He will manufacture a crisis, claim the money cannot be found to avoid layoffs and let go senior teachers every year if he gets the chance to do so.
He said so last night, at least according to the AP story.
I hope the UFT leadership understands that and has the guts to act accordingly to protect LIFO.
If LIFO ends, the mayor (or whatever corporate flunky replaces him at City Hall) will turn teaching into an at-will job where teachers can be let go at any time, so long as a budget crisis can be manufactured.
And as we learned this year when Bloomberg had a budget surplus and was choosing to lay off teachers even as he was planning to increase tech spending at the DOE by $550 million and another $600 million was being stolen by tech consultants in the CityTime project, a budget crisis can always be manufactured.
I think most of us with half a brain knew that the massive layoff threat was mainly about ending LIFO. The UFT gave Bloombuck$ a way to back down while saving face. I hope that he still loses a lot of credibility.
ReplyDeleteYour comments are well reasoned and insightful. The strategy has been revealed (for those who may have been in denial) about what Bloomberg hoped to accomplish had he been allowed to abolish LIFO. Although a battle is won, the fight continues. The union and its membership must not compromise away hard won rights under any circumstances, no matter how many threats are thrown.
ReplyDeletePoor Bloomy, the massive theft and mismanagement of City Times was problematic I'm sure... Let's hear it for transparency and accountability!
ReplyDeleteJust think of all the fear and anxiety Bloomberg puts people through when he manufactures his crises to further his own agenda. If there were any justice in the workings of the universe, he should be piling up heaps of bad karma.
ReplyDeleteThis last post is so true-this is reason that this little s#*t is going to hell!!!
ReplyDeleteEveryone should be aware that this is still a very serious threat. The reason for the aggressive push to implement an "effective" evaluation system is so they can use that data next year instead of going by LIFO during layoffs. They averted layoffs this year, but it has been repeated many times that next year's budget will be even worse. Since we didn't layoff any teachers this year, there will be many layoffs next year. Cuomo said this year that he could not abandon LIFO without an effect evaluation system. Now that there is an evaluation system in place, they will conduct layoffs according to the new "value added" evaluation scores. This will of course include some senior teachers which will have more financial impact on the savings of teacher layoffs. The politicians are laying the ground work. The Board of Regents rushed to adopt and implement a flawed evaluation system in order to use it as the hammer that is going to come down next year in the way of non-LIFO layoffs. Good luck everyone. Layoffs are going to be a crap shoot. It will be musical chairs and I hope you all have a place to sit when the music stops.
ReplyDelete