Since New York City charter schools have 2,500 empty seats right now, enough to fill four elementary schools, there is no need to raise the charter cap, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a May 26 press conference.

Flanked by state lawmakers and parent leaders, Mulgrew said charter schools claim huge waiting lists “to create the illusion of need” they don’t really have to bolster the political campaign to raise the statewide charter cap.

In addition, Mulgrew noted, charters are already approved to expand by another 27,000 seats in the coming years.

“They don’t want anyone to know these facts,” he said of the advocates pushing for a higher charter cap. “They want to act like they are bursting at the seams and they have huge waiting lists. Well, I say to them, why wait? You’ve got the seats right now. Fill them up.”

The UFT revealed the large number of vacant and available seats as the well-funded charter lobby makes a full-court press on the state Legislature to increase the charter cap by 100 schools during the final days of its legislative session.

The proposal had been part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s package of education “reforms” that he wanted to pass as part of this year’s state budget, but he had to drop it in the face of opposition.

Mulgrew called for an outside auditor to verify the accuracy of charter advocates’ claims to have waiting lists of 50,000 students.

“I want to start by challenging the charter schools to have an outside auditor look at their wonderful waiting list that no one’s ever seen,” Mulgrew said.

State Assemblyman Keith Wright of Manhattan, who spoke at the press conference, recalled his grandmother’s admonition to him at the Thanksgiving table after she piled his plate with turkey. When he asked for more she said, “Eat what’s on your plate before you ask for more.” Wright finished: “You say you have seats? Fill them up.”

Assembly member James Brennan from Brooklyn reminded the crowd that the cap was raised recently, in 2009, from 200 to 460, and that there are still “tens of thousands of seats and schools yet to go.”

Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz of the Bronx said that lawmakers should not raise the cap this year. “Let them fill their seats if they can and let’s put the money where we need to, which is for the vast majority of the kids who attend the traditional public schools so they can learn in an environment that is befitting our kids,” he said.

Gustavo Rivera, a state senator from the Bronx, said that too often charters in the Bronx, which are not full, do not take in students who arrive mid-year, unlike the regular public schools in the Bronx, which are already overcrowded.

The UFT’s borough-by-borough analysis shows that current charters in Brooklyn are authorized by the State University of New York to fill 15,494 new seats by 2020, while current Manhattan charters are authorized to add 4,097 seats, current Queens charters 3,924 seats, current Bronx charters 3,797 seats and Staten island charters 74 seats for a total of 27,386 seats.

The UFT Delegate Assembly on May 20 passed a resolution against increasing the charter cap and the union, hand in hand with parents, is seeking to maintain the current cap as part of its Keep Public Education Public campaign.