Calls for ‘no layoffs’ get louder

Miller PhotographyUFT President Michael Mulgrew is joined by parents, legislators, labor leaders and education advocates at a June 1 press conference denouncing Mayor Bloomberg’s insistence that he needs to lay off teachers to balance next year’s budget.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s insistence that he needs to lay off teachers to balance next year’s budget came under mounting challenge from parents, legislators and experts on June 1 as budget negotiations entered their final month. 

At a heavily attended morning press conference on the steps of City Hall called by City Council Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson, 25 Council members, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes and “3rd Rock from the Sun” TV star Kristen Johnston joined UFT President Michael Mulgrew to denounce the threatened layoffs and question the mayor’s spending priorities. 

“We know we have a surplus in the budget. We do not believe we’ve had real shared sacrifice in this city,” Mulgrew said, as scores of parents and local Community Education Council presidents standing with him cheered and chanted, holding signs reading “Support Our Teachers” and “Don’t Cut Our Schools.” 

Principals’ union President Ernest Logan contended that if the rich paid their fair share of taxes the city would not be facing layoffs.

“We have the money and we have the smarts in this city,” Logan said.

At the City Council hearing on the education budget that followed the rally, Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Finance Committee Chair Domenic Recchia identified cuts of more than $75 million that could be used to save teacher positions and prevent layoffs. 

Among the specific savings, the Council leaders challenged $35 million that the Department of Education says it needs to cover projected increases in special education spending, saying the need is not that great. The DOE could save another $13.2 million, they said, by reducing planned spending on technology and still increase the tech budget by 30 percent. A 10 percent reduction in contract spending on professional development would save another $9 billion. They identified a further $4 million in savings by retraining existing teachers rather than paying recruiters to hire new teachers for shortage license areas. Cutting three of the DOE’s 13 press office staff would produce $280,000 more for teachers, they said.

Earlier that same morning, the city’s Independent Budget Office published a commentary that asserted that the mayor miscalculated the salary savings from voluntary teacher departures. The IBO analysis found that the savings from attrition would be $104 million higher than the mayor’s budget assumed;  the additional savings this represents would reduce the number of layoffs needed by more than 1,600, according to the IBO analysis.

The previous week, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer called for a freeze on all new consulting contracts. Reining in what has been a fourfold increase in spending on consultants would produce significant savings, Stringer said.

Even Chancellor Dennis Walcott admitted that the DOE has already found some $11 million in consultant contract savings.

Pressed by Recchia and Jackson at the Council hearing, the chancellor testified that the DOE is “taking a very militant look at consultant contracts.” He announced that he had terminated the scandal-scarred Future Technology Associates contract to service the DOE’s computer system just the night before. (The firm used low-wage workers in Turkey and India to service the school system's computer network — and then charged taxpayers $110 an hour for the work.) The chancellor also promised to strengthen DOE oversight of the contracting-out process.

By law, the Council must pass a final budget by June 30.