Mayor's Revised Budget Calls For 6,000 Fewer Teachers

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today that more than 6,000 teachers could be cut through layoffs and attrition at schools across the five boroughs as part of a proposed $65.5 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2012.

Local reaction to the proposal in northeast Queens was swift. 

"This is definitely going to create hardships in our schools. Some of the mayor's programs will have to be set aside," said outgoing Community District Education Council 26 president Rob Caloras. "Whatever gains have been made are now going to be in question."

The mayor attributed the city budget cuts to a decrease in federal and state funding. He said Albany had reduced education funding to city schools for fiscal year 2012, which begins July 1, by $1.2 billion.

"We are not immune to the realities in Albany and Washington," Bloomberg said. "And the reality is, both places are keeping more of our tax dollars to close their own budget deficits. We have to balance the budget and we're not going to kick the can down the road."

Assemblyman , D-Little Neck, while acknowledging the tough fiscal realities facing the city and state, said there were other places in the city Department of Education's budget that could be cut. 

"We need to look at city DOE's outside contractor budget for savings," Weprin said, referring to the recent City Time scandal, in which consultants working at various agencies were found to have overcharged the city for as much as $80 million. "The worst cuts that could be made would be teachers."

At least one of Weprin's colleagues in Albany agreed.

"Mayor Bloomberg should reevaluate his priorities and find alternative cost savings measures as well as consider drawing down more of the money he has reserved for future years," said Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Bayside. "Our children should not be the ones who bear the brunt of the recent economic collapse."

The mayor presented his proposed budget on the same day that the U.S. Department of Labor announced that 244,000 jobs had been created nationwide in April. 

The budget also proposes $3.8 billion in cuts to the city's 10-year capital construction program, excluding water projects.

The budget will now go before the City Council.

The last time the city laid off teachers was during the city's last fiscal crisis in 1975, according to Weprin. 

"I hope it doesn't come to layoffs," he said. "Last time we laid off teachers, it took years for city schools to hire them back."