By Howard Koplowitz
Mayor Michael Bloomberg rolled out his $65.7 billion budget plan Friday, which includes eliminating 6,000 teacher positions, including some 4,500 jobs through layoffs.
“I’m not trying to lay off teachers… but the reality is we have to pay for it,” the mayor said, noting his plan uses the remaining $3.2 billion saved from an $8 billion surplus next fiscal year and dipped into the health care reserve fund to pay for costs.
“There’s no surplus in this,” Bloomberg said, referring to critics, including the teachers’ union, which said the city would have an abundance of funds and would not need to fire teachers. “End of story.”
About 1,500 teaching positions are expected to be lost due to attrition, although that number could be as high as 2,000 if the economy improves and there are more job opportunities, the mayor said.
Bloomberg said drops in state and federal support is “our biggest problem.”
The mayor said state aid to the city as a share of the city’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 dropped from 21 percent to 17 percent of the total budget and federal aid plunged from 15 percent to 8 percent.
Bloomberg said pension costs and the city’s deficit will increase “unless something changes in Albany.”
The mayor’s plan injects an additional $2 billion for education over last year’s budget to compensate for $853 million in federal education cuts, but the state cut back education funds for the city by $1.2 billion.
The budget also adds $1.2 billion for health care to offset $2.2 billion in Medicaid cuts, which Bloomberg said is actually $4.4 billion when Medicaid matching funds are taken into account,
The budget did have good news for the city’s child care advocates, as Bloomberg said his plan funds child care with $40 million that subsidizes low-income parents.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
