Bloomberg Says "We Always Have The Money To Avoid Teacher Layoffs

He admitted the money was always there in the budget, he was just choosing to spend it on things other than teachers:

MANHATTAN — Teacher layoffs have been averted and no fire companies will close under a new budget deal reached late Friday night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council announced following months of heated debate

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"Our children will still have the same number of great teachers, our seniors will still have great senior centers to visit and our neighborhoods will still have great firehouses to keep them safe," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said at a late-night news conference at the Tweed Courthouse, which was later interrupted by cheers as the Senate passed the gay marriage bill.

"We had tough choices to make. Thank God we managed the good financial times of this city well," she said. "We're in a much better place than we could have been in."

Bloomberg, however, remained cautious, warning of an even more dire budget hole in the years ahead.

"Make no mistake about it. This is not a good-news budget," he said.

While saving teaching jobs had not appeared to be an administration priority in the weeks leading up to the deal, the mayor said that because of the "Last In, First Out" seniority-based firing rule, focusing on teachers made the most sense.

"We always have the money. They question is, do we need to spend it on this or that? Or spend it now or later," he said.

Hey, you know you might be able to replace the 2,600 teachers who are leaving the system on their own with new teachers if you just stopped all those hundreds of millions of crooked consultants.

Oh, right - Bloomberg wouldn't want to do that, would he?

I mean, what is more important for New York - small class sizes or crooked consultants stealing hundreds of millions from the city and using it to build real estate sub-developments?

For a third year in a row, Bloomberg has brought the layoff battle right to the edge before finally pulling back from actual layoffs.

And each year, as he threatens layoffs as inevitable, he is as full of shit as the year before.

Next year when he pulls this same tired act out, I hope the politicians not on his payroll, along with the media, the union leadership and the public, treat him with the disdain he deserves.

We have the evidence from last night's press conference right from Bloomberg's own mouth - he only pushed the layoffs because he wanted to do away with LIFO; when he couldn't do away with LIFO, he continued with the layoff threat, but just to save face; he never intended to do layoffs once the LIFO battle was over; and layoffs were never necessary anyway because "We always have the money. They question is, do we need to spend it" on teachers.

Next year when we do this fight all over again, I hope Bloomberg is forced to eat the words from last night.