Cuomo Loses One To De Blasio - For Now

Andrew Cuomo put somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion dollars in state aid cuts for NYC into the state budget in an attempt to further harm his "frenemy" Bill de Blasio - but this time, Cuomo's attack on de Blasio backfired.

Here's the Daily News on that:

Andrew Cuomo backs off budget proposal that would have cost NYC an extra $800M after protest from Bill de Blasio

Score one for the mayor.

Hours after Mayor de Blasio vowed Thursday to do whatever it takes to scuttle up to $800 million in costs Gov. Cuomo wanted to force the city to cough up, Cuomo began to backpedal on the costly proposal.

Cuomo presented a budget in his State of the State address Wednesday that called for the de Blasio administration to take on massive CUNY and Medicaid bills now paid by the state — but by the end of Thursday, he was pledging the city would not have to pay a penny.

Calling the cuts “harmful” and “debilitating,” Hizzoner said he’d go all out to sink the plan.

“There’s a phrase from American history, ‘By any means necessary.’ I would invoke that phrase,” de Blasio said when asked how he’d turn back the plan. “We’ll do whatever will work.

“We will fight these cuts. We will ask the assistance of both houses of the Legislature in fighting these cuts. They are unprecedented and they are unfair to this city,” said de Blasio, who has been feuding with Cuomo since summer after he accused him of governing with a vendetta.

Amid the criticism from de Blasio and budget watchdogs, Cuomo changed his tune on the plan — suggesting the point of the proposal was simply to get players to the table to cut costs for CUNY and Medicaid.

“This is the beginning of the budget process. The budget process goes on for months. This is really the beginning of the discussion,” he said on NY1 Thursday afternoon.

“At the end of the day, what you’ll see is it won’t cost New York City a penny,” Cuomo said. “We have to reduce the cost of the bureaucracy at CUNY. We have to reduce the cost of administration for Medicaid.”

Cuomo blamed the "tabloids" for causing trouble:

Taking note of a Daily News front page with the headline “Hey, Blaz, hope you played Powerball!” Cuomo said: “God bless the New York City tabloids. They can try to make trouble in the best of news and that’s what they’re doing here.

Oh yeah, the tabloids were causing trouble - because we all know how much trouble it is when the newspapers report that the governor's budget will cost the city between $800 million (reported by the Daily News) and $1 billion (a figure Politico NY reported.)

Cuomo's continuing to screw with de Blasio, it seems to be the only thing that motivates him these days other than that vision he has of himself as the new Robert Moses.

But just as happened with Cuomo's vaunted homeless policy of mandating municipalities take homeless people off the streets at gunpoint when the temperature hits freezing (another doozy aimed at hurting de Blasio that ended up hurting Cuomo instead), Cuomo has had to "backpedal" on the budget proposals that cut so much from NYC.

I would expect that Cuomo will try other ways to stick it to de Blasio (and thus NYC) in this budget before it's all said and done.

The irony is, the only place Cuomo shows any strength in polling is in NYC.

That's why, with headlines blaring that Cuomo was looking to destroy the city with budget cuts, he has no choice but to "backpedal" and say, "Oh, no - we're just starting the negotiation process here."

De Blasio may be weakened politically, but Cuomo's not in much better shape (he's at 39% in the last Siena poll) and if he takes a hit to his NYC approval numbers, he'll be in the mid-twenties before long.

With the NY Times and the other papers taking aim at Cuomo this morning, this doesn't look to be a battle with the city that Cuomo can win.

But we'll see.

Evil is like water - it looks to find a route no matter what.

Cuomo Cuts $485 Million From CUNY Budget

He can characterize this any way he wants - they're budget cuts:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back against news coverage that said his budget proposal hurts New York City, saying that it would be “absurd” to expect increases in funding to address homelessness and expand infrastructure without an offset elsewhere.

Cuomo's proposed $145.3 billion plan includes billions for these capital outlays, but was balanced by $485 million in contributions that Cuomo wants Mayor Bill de Blasio to direct toward CUNY as well as $180 million this fiscal year and $476 million next year in additional Medicaid costs.

“It's an absurd premise that they're making,” Cuomo told Brian Lehrer on WNYC. “You can't say to the state, always pay more for everything. That's an absurd position.”

Let's see, the state provides $485 million toward CUNY, but starting with this budget, the state will no longer do that.

That's not a "cut"?

Not according to Cuomo:

Hours after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to push back against budget proposals that could hurt the city’s bottom line, Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an interview said he wasn’t trying to cut spending, but find “efficiencies.”

Speaking on NY1 on Thursday afternoon, Cuomo was reacting to growing concerns among city officials that his proposed $145 billion budget would force the city to come up with as much as $1 billion in funds for CUNY and Medicaid.

...

Cuomo’s own budget memorandum calls for the city to assume $485 million in costs for CUNY by July 1.

“CUNY, like any institution like the Medicaid management, like the housing authorities—we have to constantly work to streamline,” he said. 

Streamline?  Efficiencies?

Sure - $485 million of them.

It's good to see Cuomo on the defensive for this abomination he calls a budget.

That he needed to defend this on NY1 this morning is a result of 24 hours of negative news coverage about the harm he's doing to NYC - the only place in the state where he's got a decent approval rating.

Cuomo Proposes More SUNY Tuition Hikes

Five years of SUNY tuition hikes amounting to 30% higher tuition?

That's not enough for Governor Cuomo - more are coming and Cuomo's stealing the money to use for other things:

It’s understandable that listeners might have mistaken Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s enthusiastic pronouncement of a $6.9 billion commitment to the State University of New York and the City University of New York as an increase for SUNY and CUNY. It isn’t. It’s a cut, delivered with all the deceptive enthusiasm of the chocolate ration reduction in George Orwell’s 1984.

Equally disappointing is the governor’s promotion of another “rational tuition plan,” under which students and parents would keep paying more and more while the state pays less.

...

This proposal comes as tuition at schools like the University at Albany rose almost 5 percent this year. That’s on top of four prior years of tuition hikes under the “rational tuition plan,” an idea that sounded like a boon for higher education but has come to feel like a bait-and-switch game.

As we’ve pointed out before, the 2011 rational tuition program – under which tuition would increase $300 a year for five years – has increasingly shifted public higher education costs from the state to SUNY students. With state support staying relatively level as tuition steadily rose, the state’s share of SUNY costs has plunged from 59 percent prior to the Great Recession to 36 percent. Students’ now pay nearly two thirds. And, as we’ve noted in the past, it appears that $400 million of the extra tuition money – half of the $800 million more than students are paying – ended up in the state’s coffers.

That’s nothing but a tax hike, targeted just at SUNY students.

Everybody at that speech yesterday should have gotten up and screamed at Cuomo the way Charles Barron did.

Of course, it could be worse for SUNY.

Cuomo cut nearly $250 million from CUNY.

Cuomo Budget Will Cost NYC $1 Billion

The evil man in Albany just keeps going and going, doing more and more damage:

ALBANY — The budget Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled on Wednesday will likely deal serious damage to New York City's bottom line for years to come, budget analysts said.

Cuomo is proposing to shift the way the City University of New York is funded, to end the state’s assumption of the local share of New York City’s Medicaid costs, and to change the way the state handles the city’s STAR Personal Income Tax rebate. Those changes will likely cut close to $1 billion from the city’s budget starting in fiscal year 2017, which begins on April 1.

“For New York City, I think this is one of the worst budgets that it’s seen in a long time,” said Maria Doulis, a budget analyst at the Citizens’ Budget Commission.

That budget surplus the city had?

Just been wiped away by Cuomo in one fell stroke.

New York Goes From 8th To 20th In Education Performance Under Andrew Cuomo

Interesting piece of data in Pedro Noguera's Time-Union opinion piece decrying the Cuomo budget:

With Gov. Andrew Cuomo emerging as a champion of charter schools, what does it mean for the 97 percent of students in New York who attend public schools?

Outside major cities, most people have never heard of a charter school. They are focused instead on their local public school, where the situation is often quite disturbing.

There are a lot of problems, including the botched rollout of the common core standards, but the key problem is funding. More than 90 percent of school districts now receive less operating aid from the state than they did five years ago. Some wealthy school districts are able to cope with less funding, but most districts have had to increase class size and make cuts to cuts to art, music and foreign language, as well as advanced placement and honors courses.

We now have two systems of education in New York: In prosperous communities, we have well-funded, high-performing schools; and in less prosperous communities all across the state, we have under-funded schools and struggling students.

This widening gap is the main reason New York's ranking for overall education performance has dropped from 8th in the nation when Cuomo took office to 20th today.

No one in Albany has a plan to address the funding inequality that is the root of this problem. Instead, the governor has chosen to focus on charter schools as if they were the answer to all problems.

In fact, Cuomo is exacerbating the problem with budget after budget, sticking districts with more and more mandates even as he starves them of more and more money.

And don't think this is a mistake on Cuomo's part - he is quite literally the governor of charter schools only and his plan is to make as many traditional public schools fail as he possibly can and hand them off to his charter school operator buddies and his Wall Street/hedge fundie buddies.

I think this is the piece that some people are missing with Cuomo's budgets and mandates - they're part of an intentional strategy to undermine and destroy the public school system in the state and bring privatization to areas outside of NYC.

Bloomberg Cuts 2,500 Teachers And Guidance Counselors In 2014 FY Budget

Because it wouldn't be a proper Bloomberg budget season without a fight over cutting teachers and guidance counselors and closing fire houses, we have this news from the budget proposal presser today:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday unveiled a revised budget for the 2014 fiscal year where he said despite a increase in revenue from the capital gains tax planned cuts will move forward.

The mayor says the $69.8 billion budget remains balanced without raising taxes.

It includes $1 billion in new revenues fueled by an increase in capital gains taxes.

However, it projects a $2.2 billion short fall for fiscal year 2015.

...

The budget proposes the city shutter 20 firehouses, reduce thousands of childcare slots and cut 2,500 teaching and guidance counselor positions through attrition over the next year.

Negotiations over the plan will now begin in the City Council.

I suspect this will be the one year where Quinn simply puts the kibbosh on this stuff early because she has to worry about the fall-out from the attrition threats and fire house closings hurting her in the Democratic primary.

The good news, this is the last budget proposal from Herr Bloomberg sans a Bloombergian political coup.

Bloomberg's Budget

As expected, Bloomberg is taking out all $250 million of lost state aid on schools in his latest (and hopefully last) budget:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled the last city budget of his administration Tuesday and says it was hit hard by the recent failed agreement on a teacher evaluation system.

While he says it will be balanced, Bloomberg adds the city is set to lose millions more in state funding over the next couple of years because of the fallout.

Bloomberg says that lack of funding means the city will lose about 1,800 teachers through attrition over the next two years, and will have to cut after school programs and money for school supplies.

Notice what's not mentioned?

How Tweed will have to hire fewer outside consultants.

How there won't be money for Acuity tests.

How we will have to roll back Common Core implementation because the budget cuts will mean fewer resources for teachers and students.

How a few central Tweedies might have to go work at Bloomberg's philanthropy wing a little earlier rather than stay on the city payroll doing whatever the hell it is they do.

Nope - didn't hear any of that from the mayor.

Instead we heard how there will be fewer resources for schools, larger class sizes for kids and fewer teachers through attrition.

And given that Bloomberg's motto for the system is "Bloomberg and Walcott First...Always," I think it makes sense that Bloomberg has decided to take the budget cuts out on students, teachers and schools.

That it was Bloomberg who blew up the evaluation deal (a fact all but acknowledged not only by the heads of the principals' union and teachers' union but also by NYSED Commissioer King and Governor Cuomo) never enters into his budget thought process.

Walcott's Threats To Fire Guidance Counselors And Social Workers, Cut Programs "Unconscionable"

Chancellor Walcott threatened layoffs and program cuts unless the UFT agrees to the evaluation system he wants by December 21.

That includes cancelling after school programs and shedding guidance counselors and social workers from the DOE payroll. 

David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, responded to Walcott's threat at a rally in front of City Hall today for increased funding for schools:

“At the same time that the state has walked away from its obligation to fairly fund the poorest schools in our state,” said Sciarra, “to then turn around and use the threat of withholding funding for those very same programs that kids need, frankly, is unconscionable.”

You can be sure the media parrot heads at the News and the Death Photo Post will back Walcott on this and begin ratcheting up the message that the UFT's refusal to agree to Walcott's evaluation system is bringing about massive cuts and firings.

But that charge is false.

Dennis Walcott and his boss, Michael Bloomberg, have decided to play chicken with the UFT and refuse to agree to a reasonable, workable evaluation system.  They want a test-heavy system that will have teachers subjected to having 40% of their evaluations based upon test scores - 20% from state test scores, 20% from city test scores.  They want tests added to every subject in every grade, 3-12, so that every teacher will teach a subject and a grade that is tested.  They want to use a value-added formula similar to the piece of crap they used for the Teacher Data Reports - you know, the one with the 52% median margin of error, the 87% maximum margin of error.  And they want to begin firing teachers as soon as they come up "I-rated" as part of this unfair, unscientific and damaging system.

I am of the opinion that the UFT leadership, having already caved to the governor last February on this crap, will cave to Chancellor Walcott come late December.

What they ought to be doing is framing the issue exactly the way NYC Educator framed the issue here - the UFT wants a fair, rigorous evaluation of teachers, not a system that is rigged, inaccurate and baseless.

Unfortunately they've been letting Walcott and the corporate reform-friendly editorialists frame the issue for them.

So I suspect they will come to the membership in a couple of weeks and say "Gee, we wanted to hold out for a better system, but we were getting killed in the papers and we just couldn't allow Walcott and Bloomberg to put through these cuts, so welcome to APPRville."

What is truly unconscionable is that NYC teachers will soon be subject to a test score-based evaluation that will be error-riddled, is characterized by wide swings in stability and ultimately will tar every teacher in the city as "ineffective" if they hang around long enough.

Why would anybody in their right mind, any "good teacher," want to stick around and subject themselves to such a system?

Why would any "good teacher" want to teach in the toughest schools with the kids who need good teachers the most when they know it will mean a "I-rating" and a loss of employment in a few years?

Walcott is bullying the UFT and teachers right now with his threats, but once this system is in place, the real victims of the bullying will be NYC students as they watch their teachers subjected to this inaccurate, error-riddled evaluation system and either leave for better things or get "I-rated" out of the teaching profession.

NY Post Says LIFO, Layoff Fight Begins Again Soon

It's never too early for the UFT to get ready for the next battle with Bloomberg and the corporate education reform establishment.

Bloomberg failed to get LIFO changed and therefore didn't REALLY want to do layoffs this year, as he would have had to lay off lots of newbie teachers instead of more expensive vets and the ATR's.

But you can bet in his last full year in office before the 2013 election, he will try extra hard to get that LIFO rule changed and lay off ATR's and vets as well and set things up so that the next mayor can lay off as many teachers as he wants every year without the union being able to protect them.

You can bet that he is manufacturing the budget crisis already.

You can bet the editorial writers at the tabloids - the Times, Murdoch Street Journal, Post and News - are dipping their pens in poison ink to get ready to write the anti-teacher/anti-seniority editorials.

You can bet that Bloomberg is finagling with New York's Tea Party Governor, Little Andy Cuomo, as well as Senate Republicans and corporate Dems to have LIFO changed for good.

You can bet that if you follow the cash Bloomberg hands these people, you will see just how tough this fight is going to be next year.

The UFT MUST not rest now that the threat of layoffs and LIFO changes are done for the year.

When it comes to fighting a man as petulant, as arrogant, as egotistical and as rich as Bloomberg, you cannot rest even one moment.

He's got one more year to make significant changes to the seniority system in the DOE. He's got one more year to make significant changes to the pay system, the pension system, and the health care system as well.

You can bet he will want changes to all of these.

The UFT has to muster all the anti-Bloombergian allies it can to fight these changes, both here in the city and in Albany.

There are enough pols in both places sick of Bloomberg and his shit.

Judging by the poll numbers, the people in NYC certainly are sick of him.

He CAN be beaten.

He MUST be beaten.

He is wounded, especially with all these scandals breaking that show how many hundreds of millions have been stolen on his watch even as he insists upon handing out money illegally to consultants for contracts that have been rejected by the city controller's office.

But he has enormous wealth and resources and won't hesitate to use it.

We cannot rest in this fight.

The fight goes on.

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

...

"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.

Bloomberg Admits He Avoided Layoffs Because LIFO Wasn't Changed

From the Associated Press account of the budget deal reached last night between Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council and the UFT:

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.

The Deal To Avert Layoffs

I wanted to wait a few hours before writing my take on this because as soon as I saw the headline on the Times story last night around 10:45 PM ("Teachers Union Agrees To Concessions To Avoid Layoffs"), I just about wanted to head down to 52 Broadway and break windows.

I had visions of the UFT handing Bloomberg hundreds of millions of dollars from the health care fund, agreeing to salary step freezes and other payroll concessions or opening up the Pandora's Box of health care costs and agreeing to some kind of containment clause.

Those were the kinds of things the mayor wanted in this fight once it became clear that Sheldon Silver and the Assembly were not going to change LIFO for him and allow him to mass lay off the ATR's.

But as I dug into the story a little, I started to see that the "concessions" the mayor claims he got from the deal aren't exactly the kind of sweeping, money-saving concessions he claimed he needed in order to not lay teachers off.

According to Gotham Schools, the two concessions that the UFT granted Bloomberg are canceling sabbaticals for 2012-2013 (supposedly will save $17 million) and allowing ATR's to be used as day-to-day substitutes in their districts (supposedly will save $43 million.)

The total savings from the UFT concessions is $60 million.

The mayor was saying he needed somewhere between $240 million and $377 million in savings in order to avoid layoffs.

Instead he got (at least according to Gotham Schools), $60 million.

Now the city council supposedly agreed to pony up more money for schools too, though I have not seen a number figure on that, so perhaps the "savings" Bloomberg got out of last night's deal is closer to $100 million, but nonetheless it is nowhere near what he claimed he needed in order to avert layoffs.

On the mayor's side, he admits that he lowballed the number of teachers that will be lost to attrition, that schools WILL still take huge cuts to their budgets (while central office at Tweed and the technology consultants will NOT) and will STILL see higher class sizes and fewer teachers next year.

So there is no doubt that the UFT DID concede on issues here that they should have NEVER conceded on.

To review, there is a budget surplus.

Bloomberg was lying about the need to lay teachers off.

He was making a political gambit to get LIFO changed so he could lay off ATR's this year and then lay off senior teachers every year thereafter, dramatically remaking the teaching corps. of NYC into at-will employees.

But he lost that gambit when the Assembly didn't jump when he said "Cash!"

So he was left with a difficult choice - either back down and lose face (and once again be revealed as a lying sack of shit when it comes to layoffs) or continue with the farce and say he needed to do layoffs anyway, despite the surplus.

The UFT had the moral and the political high ground on this.

Public opinion polls show that people despise the mayor, despise his policies, and REALLY despise his education policies.

People KNOW that Bloomberg has been wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on crooked technology projects.

Consultants hired by Bloomberg are being arrested left and right for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the city.

And Bloomberg has budgeted $900 million in additional technology spending for the DOE next year even as he claimed he needed to save $377 million by laying teachers off.

So as I say, the UFT had almost all the cards in this game.

In my opinion, they should have conceded nothing.

They should have gone on the air in mass with CityTime scandal commercials, showing the parade of criminal consultants arrested for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in city funds, played tapes of Bloomberg on his radio show claiming victory on CityTime and saying what a swell project it is and the stolen money just, you know, slipped through the cracks, and then noted that the mayor plans to hand out another $900 million in consultant funds and technology upgrades next year even as he refuses to conduct oversight over these projects, refuses to take responsibility for all the stolen cash so far and insists that he MUST lay teachers off to save the city money.

Seriously, on the face of it, it was absurd for Bloomberg to claim he needed to lay off teachers to save $377 million in the same week that the U.S. attorney announced $600 million had been stolen by crooked consultants in Bloomberg's CityTime project.

So the UFT should not have conceded a thing when they had these kinds of cards.

In addition, the ATR concession is worrisome to me - it is just another sign that ATR's will eventually be sold out by Mulgrew and Company.

It is just a matter of time.

Next year when Bloomberg claims poverty again and starts handing out cash in Albany to get LIFO changed, you can bet that one of the concessions he will want in order to avoid layoffs will be on the ATR's.

And the UFT looks like they are ready to sell them out.

But all things considered, the concessions the UFT made could have been worse.

They could have conceded a couple of hundred million from the health care fund, money Bloomberg would have used to pay outside consultants for his crooked technology contracts.

They could have conceded health care or pension containment costs.

They could have conceded furlough days (or furlough weeks) or agreed to a salary step/longevity freeze.

They didn't do any of that (though on the health care fund front, Mulgrew certainly tried!)

I dunno if it's just that I have gotten cynical about the UFT in my middle age, but when I thought about last night's deal a little, my take was "Sure, the UFT snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, but it's not as bad a defeat as I thought it was going to be."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the union.

But given the serious defeats suffered by labor unions in Jersey and other states and given the concessions agreed to by CSEA in contract negotiations with New York's Tea Party Governor Cuomo, I guess it's not as bad as it could have been.

I know that's the official line from the Unity and New Actions parties at the UFT.

In a way they're right.

But it also doesn't bode well for the future that the official line of the UFT is "Sure, we had to give stuff up even though Bloomberg had a surplus and didn't need to do layoffs, but hey, it could have been worse!"

I suspect next year when we do this shit all over again (and make no mistake, unless Bloomberg is arrested, resigns in disgrace or dies suddenly of an ego attack, we will do this all over again next year), it will be worse.

And if you're an ATR next year, they will try and make your life a living hell, worse than they have already made it, in order to get you to quit.

That's the goal - get senior teachers and ATR's off the payroll.

The concessions the UFT agreed to last night will help the mayor do just that on the ATR front.

And there will still be fewer teachers next year, class sizes will still be higher than they were this year and Bloomberg still gets to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on crooked consultants.

Not the worst deal the UFT leadership could have made, but certainly not the good one they're claiming it to be either.

NY1 Reports Budget Negotiations Between Mayor And Unions Have Broken Apart

The mayor wants to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the health care fund without any strings attached:

A proposal by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to avert public school teacher layoffs has fallen apart at the negotiating table.

The mayor was prepared to stop some 5,000 layoffs, most of them teachers, if city workers agreed to pay out $220 million from a health care fund controlled by the unions.

Union leaders said they were prepared to turn over that money to help the city, but only if additional money from the fund could be used to help workers.

A spokesman for the mayor said Thursday the city had no choice but to reject the offer.

The spokesman also said the city is ready to negotiate a deal to avoid layoffs.

A budget deal is due by the end of June.

Now why would the unions be negotiating a deal with the mayor that would allow his to steal $220 million from a health care fund for workers when he has allowed $600 million to be stolen by outside consultants and technology companies as part of the CityTime project, plans to spend $900 million next year on outside consultants and technology upgrades to the DOE, and has an actual surplus of money even before he spends that $900 million?

I'm serious.

Yes, layoffs are bad.

But to hand over $220 million to the mayor from a health care fund that is used to pay for health care overrun costs in a year when he has an actual surplus and just plans to hand the money to outside technology consultants and companies who are already stealing the city blind - that's not only bad policy by the unions leadership, that's insane behavior.

Next year, Bloomberg will come right back for more layoffs.

That's assuming he doesn't steal the $220 million and break the agreement and come back for more layoffs later this year.

That's what this guy does.

He breaks agreements.

He lies.

He cheats.

He cannot be trusted.

His word is about as good as the word of the owners of Technodyne, the company that stole $400 million in the CityTime project and ran off to India to avoid arrest.

So the strategy for the unions going forward ought to be to take out a massive ad campaign that states how Bloomberg has allowed $600 million to be stolen by outside computer consultants in the CityTime project, $3.5 million by an outside computer consultant who worked for the DOE, millions more by another company hired by the DOE to do tech work and those are just the contracts that have gotten scrutiny - many others Bloomberg refuses to reveal the details of and may contain many other instances of corruption.

While Bloomberg allows all this stealing by the outside computer techs to go on, he plans to spend $900 million on technology projects for the DOE next year, an increase of $550 million, even as he says he must lay off thousands of teachers because the city is broke even when the city isn't broke and has an actual surplus.

Now this is a mayor who thinks he did a great job on the CityTime project where crooks stole $600 million dollars - the largest theft ever committed against the City of New York.

Why should we allow Bloomberg to lay off thousands of teachers at the same time he wants to spend $900 million on crooked tech projects and crony consultants?

Say no to the Bloomberg Budget of Corruption.

Say no to layoffs.

Say no to outside consultants who steal millions from the city.

That ought to be the union strategy going forward.

Bloomberg might actually go ahead with the layoffs in that case, but the groundwork will have been laid for political victory for the unions - people will know that Bloomberg has laid off thousands of teachers and created mass chaos in the school system in order to hand out $900 million dollars to his crooked cronies in tech companies that seem to rival the Gambino Family for ethics and morals.

I think if the unions stands firm on this, Bloomberg will read the political calculus right and NOT go ahead with the layoffs.

He knows how unpopular he is.

He knows how unpopular his education policies are.

He knows how unpopular the teacher layoffs are.

If the unions can make clear to the people that not only is the money already in the budget to avoid layoffs but that the money Bloomberg plans to save through layoffs he will spend on crooked consultants and tech projects, well, they can force Bloomberg to find the money to avoid the layoffs.

And yet the UFT, as always, looks to weaken its hand in negotiations, to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.

They look to bail the mayor out by handing him hundreds of millions of the workers' money without any strings attached to it - all so he can hand it to his crooked consultant friends.

The teachers have the moral high ground on this matter.

The Bloomberg administration has allowed so much corruption to go on unchecked in this city that he ought to be renamed Boss Tweed.

Go hard and heavy on that message and MAKE him make his own decisions on the layoffs.

Don't bail him out with free money from the health care fund.

At the end of the day, if he goes though with layoffs, the political price he will pay will be enormous.

But if the unions hand him $220 million from the health car fund with no strings attached, the unions themselves will pay a very hefty price next year when Bloomberg comes back for not only layoffs but cuts to health care too (as the money from the fund will have been raided.)

Bloomberg Accused Of Bait And Switch With State Education Funds By 52 Assembly Members

Time for an audit of Herr Moneybags:

Did the city withdraw more than $200 million in financing for public schools after the state gave it that amount of money to help avert some of the threatened school budget cuts and teacher layoffs?

A group of New York Assembly members say that is exactly what happened after legislators added $205 million to the final state budget passed in March to prevent deeper cuts that would affect the city’s classrooms.

In a letter delivered to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Thursday, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, the chairwoman of the Education Committee, criticized the city for taking the state’s money and then cutting the schools’ budget by roughly the same amount.

“It would appear that instead of using the additional state funds to restore classroom cuts, these state dollars were used to supplant city funds,” says the letter (also see below), which was signed by 52 Assembly members.

A City Hall spokesman said the city did cut its contribution to the schools by $207 million when it received the extra state funds. But the spokesman, Marc La Vorgna, said the $205 million was hardly “additional” financing for city schools in a year in which the city was left struggling to restore $800 million that was still cut from state education financing.

That huge loss of state aid, he said, means the city still cannot afford 6,100 of its teachers, but that number could have been worse if the city had not spared it from more cuts, he said.

“It’s pretty curious when Assembly members who voted for the largest state cut to our schools in history criticize a mayor who is increasing city funding for schools by $2 billion, largely to cover for their cut,” Mr. La Vorgna wrote in an e-mail message, in response to the letter from the Assembly members.

Ms. Nolan said, however, that the state restored some of its education aid on the premise that it would be used to improve the schools’ budgetary circumstances, not keep them the same.

“I know the state should have given more,” Ms. Nolan said. “I fought hard for the millionaire’s tax that might have generated more, but in times of scarce resources, we have to emphasize that the focus should be on the classroom.”

Ms. Nolan’s letter noted that while the restored money would not have been enough to prevent all of the 4,100 layoffs the mayor has threatened to carry out, it could have cut the loss of teachers by more than half.

The planned education budget cuts continue to draw criticism and protests. On Thursday, members of several advocacy organizations that have been protesting the cuts delivered seven 50-foot scrolls to City Hall. The scrolls were signed by more than 16,000 people opposed to the mayor’s budget.

As one commenter says after the Times article, Bloomberg is guilty of "manipulative accounting."

Another called in a "financial shell game."

The point here is that Bloomberg has CHOSEN to spend city money on other things rather than classroom expenses or teachers.

Whether it's the CityTime boondoggle, the $550 million in tech spending he has allotted for the NYCDOE next year, the extra millions he's using to add dozens of tests to school next year so that he can give every teacher a value-added assessment, this mayor has CHOSEN to spend money on education priorities that are quite frankly, screwed up.

But until he is made to pay a price for all of this, a real, tangible price, he is going to continue to do this stuff.

Here is what he deserves to confront every time he shows his face in public.

That would get the point across to him and his oligarch cronies.

NYC Unions Tired Of Being Scapegoated

More on why the deal to avert layoffs by allowing Bloomberg to steal the union health care fund fell apart today:

In a private meeting, member unions of the Municipal Labor Committee balked at making concessions to prevent the mayor from following through on his threat to lay off 4,100 teachers.

The resistance of the unions to self-funding a plan to avert layoffs of the teachers and hundreds of other city workers jeopardizes a city budget deal that had been in the works.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn had asked Municipal Labor Committee Chairman Harry Nespoli to come to the table to discuss ways to prevent the layoffs. Talks centered on tapping into the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund, which is run jointly by the city and the unions.

But Mr. Nespoli released a terse, pessimistic statement this afternoon following the committee meeting, which he said lasted several hours.

“I can tell you that there is a lot of mistrust of City Hall based upon the way we have been treated in the last eight months or so,” the statement said. “That is all I am going to say right now.”

The reference appeared to be to the mayor's refusal to give ground on his layoff threat.

Not all of the committee's 90 unions are against the deal, but enough are resisting it to put its outcome in doubt.

The United Federation of Teachers, which stands to lose the most, is in favor of the deal, the details of which have yet to be ironed out between the mayor's office, the City Council and the unions. One labor insider said the deal “was neither blown up nor locked up.” The insider said that some unions wanted a no-layoff guarantee to be extended for a period of longer than one year.

Gregory Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, who attended the meeting, said that the pushback on the deal stems from the fact that the fund was set up for health benefits, that several unions did not receive contracts in the last round of negotiations, and that key City Hall staffers who dealt with labor in the past are no longer around.

He cited former Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs Kevin Sheekey, who left for Bloomberg LP; former Deputy Mayor of Operations Ed Skyler, who is now at Citigroup; former Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, who is now schools chancellor; and James Hanley, commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Labor Relations, who is recovering after surgery.

“Put all those factors together and there was a lot of anger in the room,” Mr. Floyd said. “The unions are always willing to negotiate, but we're tired of being scapegoated.”

One of the more outspoken leaders against the deal was Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association. Mr. Seabrook said Ms. Quinn and Mr. Bloomberg should not expect “labor to be the savior” in the budget process. He said current talks have involved taking $400 million from the fund in exchange for one year without layoffs. But he said that would put unions in the same position, confronting layoffs, but with less leverage, 12 months from now.

“I’d be interested in talking about it if I had a two and a half year deal that took me into the next administration,” he said. “For me, it’s a breaking point to even start with anything less than that.”

There's no assurance that Bloomberg won't look to find a loophole in the deal and do layoffs anyway.

Remember that's what he's done with the teacher data reports, which he promised the UFT wouldn't be published in the media before he, you know, reneged on that.

And frankly, as I wrote earlier today in this post and then later when the deal fell apart in this post, there is no reason for the unions to bail Bloomberg out on this mess.

He backed himself into the corner with the layoff ultimatum.

He knows the money is there to avert layoffs - $550 million of it, which he is using to upgrade technology in the DOE.

He could tap that cash anytime and avoid layoffs.

But he insists there will be layoffs instead, even though this policy is very unpopular, even though he is very unpopular, even though his education policies are very unpopular.

I say don't give him a parachute to save himself.

Certainly don't give him $360 million from the health care fund when he already has the money to avoid layoffs.

He's twisting in the wind on this and he knows it.

His dilemma is of his own making.

And he has the money to solve the problem already.

Praying To Reverse Bloomberg's Budget Cuts

Taking the fight to a higher power:

At roughly 60 city churches and other houses of worship this weekend, congregations will pray for Mayor Bloomberg to reverse "immoral" cuts to schools, a group of religious leaders told the Daily News.

After protests and marches failed to sway the mayor, the religious leaders say they are taking their cause to a Higher Power.

"Because we are religious leaders, we're going to pray the Lord will touch the heart of the mayor and the City Council," said Bishop Orlando Findlayter, chairman of Churches United to Save and Heal and pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Brooklyn. "Any cut to education will be detrimental."

The ministers and other religious leaders are also sending a letter to the mayor asking him to rethink his position on the so-called millionaire's tax as well.

"My congregation and my prayer ministry will be praying for the mayor," said Pastor Kevin Osbourne of Refuge Church of God in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Praying for the Lord to touch the heart of the mayor.

Sounds like a good idea.

If the mayor had a heart to begin with.

But the coverage of 60 churches having a mass prayer to reverse the mayor's budget cuts and layoffs (even as he ratchets up technology spending in schools by $550 million) - well, that just might be effective.

Bloomberg doesn't have any shame, but with 37% approval in the city and 78% disapproval for education policies among school parents, the more public demonstrations against his outrageous budget, the better.

The pressure is mounting.

DiNapoli: NYC Will Have $3.2 Billion Dollar Surplus

I guess Mayor Mike will have lots of extra money for outside computer consultants with that surplus money - $3.2 billion according to a prediction by the state comptroller.

No money for teachers, of course.

Or firehouses.

Or senior centers.

But technology contracts and outside consultants?

Oh yeah, we got money for that.

Bloomberg Increases Tweed Budget Even As He Lays Off Teachers

Another outrage from the fiscally responsible Mayor of Outside Consultant Corruption:

The Bloomberg administration plans to dole out $20 million extra for the Department of Education's Tweed headquarters - even as it prepares pink slips for 4,100 classroom teachers, documents show.

That's a 7% increase over this year's $293 million budget for Tweed.

The agency's field offices also are slated to get a 1% budget boost - another $3 million - in the coming fiscal year.

Some parents and watchdogs are calling for the agency to redirect the cash from the administration to classrooms.

"I wish they would prioritize in a manner that would save teachers," said Ric Cherwin, PTA president of Manhattan's Global Learning Collaborative. He said parents and students are "very worried" about the city's threat to lay off beloved instructors.

The largest budget jump at Tweed would go to the agency's legal team, which would get a 300% increase - $7.4 million - over this year. Its labor relations division budget would jump to $2.3 million, up $1.3 million. And spending for its technology division would climb to $20 million, up $6.4 million.

"There's nobody who's a parent who feels there should be an increase at Tweed and cuts to the schools," said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan).

"We need teachers."

The message from Bloomberg - we don't need teachers, we need more outside consultants, we need more lawyers, we need more technology spending and we need more central office bureaucrats.

Bloomberg, UFT Going To Make A Deal On Layoffs?

City Hall News says the UFT and Bloomberg are quietly talking behind the scenes about concessions to stave off layoffs:

Even as tensions between the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers remain high, the two sides are quietly talking about proposals that could sharply reduce the number of teacher layoffs the mayor has proposed, sources close to the budget process say.

While no accord seems imminent, the low-key discussions hold the potential to protect many of the 4,000 teacher layoffs Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said are necessary – while also giving him a face-saving way to avoid the spectacle of mass firings.

“We will continue to work with our colleagues in Albany to make the necessary changes in state law that will allow us to manage any layoffs in a more responsible, intelligent and equitable manner,” Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott told a City Council hearing yesterday.

The Bloomberg administration’s earlier hope to change the state’s “last in, first out” policy on teacher layoffs has been dashed in Albany, but Walcott was in the Capitol last week pushing for other changes to make it easier to fire egregiously bad teachers, like those convicted of felonies.

“Who’s going to be against that?” asked a high-level source involved in budget talks. “The UFT is talking to the mayor’s office and trying to figure out a compromise to make this work.”

Sources on both sides downplayed the results of such talks, saying discipline changes in the future won’t save jobs this year. But they said Bloomberg’s team is trying to reduce the potential for layoffs, since firing teachers would be deeply unpopular – especially for a mayor whose reputation on education issues has been falling.

The mayor is deeply unpopular, his education policies are deeply unpopular, his layoff proposal is deeply unpopular - the UFT does NOT need to concede anything here.

The savings that the mayor claims he needs can come from outside consultant contracts and the tech budget.

That's it.

Bloomberg plans to spend $550 million on technology upgrades next year, an outrageous amount considering he's claiming he needs to lay off thousands of teachers to save $300 million. He wants to do this so he can spend millions more on standardized tests and add dozens of new tests to every grade - not to improve education, just so teachers can be tracked.

It is egregious that the mayor wants to replace teachers with computers so that he can add dozens of standardized tests in order to track teachers.

Hammer that point home again and again.

Geez, it's not hard here.

People are sick of Bloomberg, they don't like him or his policies in general, and they REALLY hate his education policies.

78% of NYC public school parents oppose his education policies.

The UFT doesn't have to concede anything here.

The mayor is the one who has to concede.

As Public Advocate de Balsio, Manhattan Borough President Stringer and Comptroller Liu have all pointed out, Bloomberg has made a political decision to lay teachers off.

This has nothing to do with the budget in any real way.

The money exists to keep teachers on the job.

Bloomberg has just decided to spend it on computers, standardized tests and outside tech consultants instead of teachers.

Walcott: We Need To Lay Off Teachers So We Can Continue To Spend On Testing And Consultants

That's the message he sent to the City Council today when he testified:

While testifying before the City Council today, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott reaffirmed the need to layoff thousands of educators in an effort to reduce its 2012 education budget.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called for eliminating more than 6,000 teachers through a combination of layoffs and attrition.

While testifying, Walcott said financial strains placed on the Department of Education have left them no choice but to include layoffs.

Gee, all the money thrown at the CityTime boondoggle, the hundreds of millions in extra costs that have come because the city failed to do proper oversight on the project and allowed it to run over by $700 million, all the money that they plan to throw into the tech budget next year, $550 million in spending, and yet Walcott can actually say with a straight face that fiscal prudence dictates they must lay off teachers.

Amazing.

The City Council wasn't buying his tale of woe, however:

Council members, though, say not enough has been done to save teaching jobs and reduce contract spending.

"You have still chosen to eliminate over 5,700 teachers. You have still chosen to increase contract spending by over $700 million and you have still chosen to increase central administration's budget by $15 million while cutting funding for schools by $325 million, that's a shame," said City Councilman Robert Jackson.

"As things stand today we still don't have enough money to underwrite all of our expenses. And with 70 percent of school budgets tied up in compensation costs we have little choice but to reduce the size of our workforce," said Walcott.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn released a statement earlier in the day outlining over $75 million in cost cutting measures for the DOE, including reductions in technology, transportation and press office headcount.

And neither was the IBO:

Meanwhile, the Independent Budget Office said today Mayor Michael Bloomberg might be overstating the number of necessary layoffs, in part, because of an underestimate on savings from attrition.

The IBO is projecting a total of 5,198 layoffs are needed; 2,571 through attrition.

And I can find the rest of the cost savings for Dennis and Mikey - simply cut the technology budget by $200 million or $300 million dollars, add the extra tech spending when the economy turns around in a few years, keep all the teachers you have plus add a few more to replace the ones who have left or are leaving.

See how easy that is, Dennis?

You just have to spend less on consultants and delay the dozens of new standardized tests you plan to add to the system by a few years, that's all.