Testimony on the city's 2012 Preliminary Budget

Good afternoon Chairman Jackson, Chairman Recchia and members of these distinguished committees. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you on Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed education budget.

On behalf of our members, we want to thank you for all that you do to make New York strong. By consistently standing up for our children, our schools and our communities, the City Council has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to improving the lives of working families and the city’s most vulnerable citizens. The UFT is once again ready to work with the council to protect our students, our classrooms and our communities from undue harm.

Over the last few weeks, Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly expressed his “outrage” over the state budget, claiming it leaves him with no choice but to inflict further devastating cuts on our school communities.

The mayor’s outrage is disingenuous at best. What’s outrageous are the deliberate choices that the mayor has made during this budget process – Choices like pushing for layoffs and drastic cutbacks rather than getting his own house in order. Choices like eviscerating classrooms and the city’s workforce while turning to outside contractors. Choices like giving tax breaks to the rich at the expense of children and our most vulnerable citizens.

Our kids can’t afford teacher layoffs or steep cuts, and the mayor’s own books say they don’t have to. Even the governor and his staff have repeatedly pointed out that the city has the money to make layoffs unnecessary. If the mayor lays off a single teacher or makes deep cuts in our schools, it is only because that is the choice he decides to make.

There are a lot of numbers to consider as we go through this budget process, but there are three that I want to highlight today:

• $3.1 billion – That’s the size of the city’s surplus, made possible by the sacrifices that New Yorkers have made in recent years.
• $300 million – That is what the city’s December report had as under spending in DOE personnel salaries.
• 5,000 – That’s the number of teachers we have lost and not replaced during the last two years, which has resulted in larger class sizes across the board.

We all know what repeated rounds of cutbacks have already done to our classrooms: Important academic programs and services that kids depend on have been lost, and schools have been forced to eliminate science and language programs, music and the arts, sports, clubs, extracurriculars and more.

We also know what the loss of 5,000 teachers and DOE’s mismanagement of state class size reduction funds have already done to our schools:

• Class sizes have grown across every grade in each of the last three years.
• One-third of our kindergarteners and half of our third graders are now in classes of 25 or more.
• Thirty percent of our core-subject high school classes have 33 or more students.

The last time we saw numbers like these was the 1970s. Keep in mind that the school system has added over 14,000 students during last two years – 11,000 of whom require special education services.

Now consider for a moment what the layoff of 4,700 additional teachers and the attrition of 1,500 others would look like:

• A 13% increase in class size, with elementary schools bearing the brunt of those increases.
• Almost 10% of kindergarteners and a third of 1st through 3rd graders would be in classrooms with 29 students or more.
• More than one third of 4th and 5th graders would attend classes of 32 or more.
• Forty percent of all middle schoolers would be in classrooms of 34 and up.
• Nearly one-third of high school students would study their core subjects in classrooms of 37 or larger.

It does not have to be this way. The hand we’ve been dealt by Albany, while austere, does not leave us in a completely untenable situation. The state legislature was able to restore an additional $230 million in school aid, including $53 million for New York City schools, leaving us with a cut of $510 million. However, unlike the last few years, we have solid options that will allow us to avoid layoffs and deep cuts, namely the $3.1 billion surplus.

So again, it’s really all about choices. It’s worth noting that at the same time the Bloomberg administration is talking about layoffs and cutbacks, the central Department of Education is slated to increase the size of the central bureaucracy at Tweed with 218 new positions and a 10% budget increase. They’re also lining up $40 million in outside management consultants and another $36 million for outside computer consultants. They’ve quietly held on to $300 million in this year’s personnel budget. They’re attempting to spend $20 million to recruit new teachers – despite the layoff threat, the longstanding hiring freeze and the many great people already in the CUNY and SUNY pipelines. They’re even trying to take back money that principals saved, redirecting those funds from direct services for kids to Tweed’s own priorities. These actions aren’t just tone-deaf. They are scandalous.

The sheer magnitude of outside contracts alone – $4.6 billion and growing – necessitates action. If the DOE renegotiated those contracts with just a 5% reduction, we could put $200+ million back in the classrooms. Among those contracts are over $700 million in direct educational services and $90 million in outside professional development programs that could be provided more efficiently in-house. Millions more could be saved by creating recertification incentives for existing teachers and new pathways that allow paraprofessionals already working with our most challenging students to transition into much-needed positions.

Every dollar counts in our schools, never more so than now when we are all trying to do more with less. Our kids need help and support, from the after-school programs that keep them off the streets to the college prep courses that help them pursue meaningful careers. They also need their teachers, who have dedicated their careers to making a difference in their lives. We ask that the council oppose all teacher layoffs and restore as much education funding as possible so that our students have the resources they need.

The painful sacrifices that New Yorkers have already made – too numerous to count – allowed the city to build that giant surplus of over $3.1 billion dollars. The savings achieved through many rounds of budget cuts helped make that happen. The savings achieved when thousands of city workers left and weren’t replaced helped make that happen.

The UFT also played a huge role, by making significant changes to our pension and health care plans, saving the city hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the process. What’s more, thousands of our members, as well as our union and community partners, have helped secure additional state and federal funds through our relentless advocacy. We also saved the city $40 million by closing the so-called ‘rubber rooms’.

We’ve all stepped up for this city when it counted most, even as important programs and services were lost. We’ve all done more with less even as everyday costs keep rising. But rather than recognize those efforts and help working families, the Bloomberg administration has instead put forward a doomsday budget that includes laying off thousands of teachers and other workers. They also want to cut even more from our schools and other services like day care.

Their actions are pitting parents against parents, teachers against teachers, and communities against communities. That’s not leadership. That’s not putting children first. That’s a shameful abdication of their responsibilities.

Earlier in my testimony, I mentioned three key numbers that we all need to keep in mind as we move forward. I’d like to add a fourth one:

• $5 billion – The amount of tax cuts our richest citizens would get next year if the millionaires’ tax isn’t renewed before December 31st.

It is a shame that Mayor Bloomberg chose not to join the growing movement pushing for its renewal. People keep making the argument that New York City is well on the road to economic recovery, but at best, that’s only partially true. Big profits and big bonuses may be back with a vengeance on Wall Street, but most of our friends and neighbors are still struggling to pay their bills and find jobs. Forget for a second that we have companies like GE earning billions in profits without paying any taxes whatsoever. When it comes to our citizens, the chasm between the haves and have nots has exploded across the country, and nowhere is it worse than right here in the five boroughs. New York City is America’s income disparity capital.

To put that in perspective, consider this: The top 1% of earners here in New York City are taking in 45% of all earned income. What’s more, while half the households around the five boroughs – HALF – are living near the poverty line or below, we also have 90,000 households raking in $10,000 a day. Ten percent of our city’s households don’t make $10,000 in a year.

We’re not going to get back on the right track until we solve this fundamental problem. Supporting our schools and communities has to be borne by everyone, not just the poor, the workers and the middle class. It’s called ‘shared sacrifice’, and it’s the right thing to do.

Our fight on this issue will continue in the weeks and months ahead, and we hope the council will support us in that effort.

Moving forward, we will also continue to raise public awareness about the deliberate choices that the mayor has made, siding with the rich and the Tweed bureaucracy rather than students and working families. His comments and actions have thus far alienated parents, demonized teachers and harmed the quality of education in our schools. Let’s hope he chooses to change his ways.

The UFT will continue to support our schools and fight hard for our students. They are depending on us to do what’s right, and we cannot afford to let them down.