UFT: Mayor Bloomberg Fiscal Delusion

Dear colleagues,

With a state budget reached in Albany, the mayor continues his wrong-headed call for teacher layoffs.

The final state budget adds more than $200 million to Governor Cuomo’s proposed education budget. Even without that restoration of aid, the governor had said that layoffs would not be necessary.

Let’s be clear: the mayor’s case for layoffs is as full of holes as ever.

The fact is the city’s tax revenues are soaring, with a $2 billion increase just in the last few months. New York now has a $3.1 billion surplus, and the Department of Education is holding back $106 million of its own unspent personnel funds!

We are obviously disappointed that Albany cut more than $1 billion in statewide education aid and did not agree to extend the millionaire’s tax, which would have offset the need for such a big cut. The mayor did us no favors by staunchly opposing the continuation of the tax on his wealthy friends.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who fought to keep the millionaire’s tax in place, has said that he has not given up hope of convincing the governor and Senate Republicans to agree to extend the tax before it expires in December. We will do whatever we can to help make that happen.

We must now redouble our efforts to alert parents and the community that our kids can’t afford teacher layoffs and that the mayor’s own books show that such a drastic step is not necessary. We need to make it clear that if the mayor lays off a single teacher, it is because he has chosen to do so — it’s not out of necessity.

With the cut in state education aid, it becomes all the more important that the city spend its education dollars wisely. But that is not happening. At the same time that the mayor threatens teacher layoffs that would make class sizes skyrocket even higher, he wants to hire hundreds more central staff administrators at the DOE, spend tens of millions of dollars more on high-priced consultants, and nearly double the spending on computer contractors, with most of that going to central bureaucracy.

I want to personally thank the thousands of UFT members who have volunteered their time in the past few months to fight for our children’s future, whether you paid a visit to your state lawmaker, handed out leaflets outside your school or at a subway station, attended your local CEC meeting, or any of the other many ways that we have mobilized to get the truth out.

We remain in the fight of our lives. If you have not already done so, please sign up to join our campaign to protect our students and our schools. Here’s a flier you can use for leafleting outside your school. Check the UFT.org events calendar or contact your chapter leader or district rep to find more ways you can get involved.

Thanks for all that you do,

Michael Mulgrew