Skip to main content
Full Menu Close Menu
News Stories

Early retirement incentive off table

New York Teacher
Mature woman laying on the floor looking at her laptop

Despite all the UFT’s efforts, City Hall will not offer an early retirement incentive for any DOE employees this year.

Under the legislation passed in Albany in April, the city had until May 31 to finalize details of an early retirement incentive program with the UFT, and it failed to do so by the deadline.

“With the influx of federal COVID-19 relief funds for education, the city is now focused on hiring more educators, not reducing its workforce,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “We know this is disappointing and yet another way we feel let down by City Hall this year.”

State lawmakers authorized an early retirement incentive in New York City in March when the city’s economic outlook was still unclear. By the end of May, billions of dollars of new federal funding were flowing into city coffers. The union tried fruitlessly for months to get the city to finalize an agreement.