What a Bargain

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided that the negotiation strategy for dealing with the UFT (the teachers union) this go-around is to give away the farm even before the negotiations have begun in earnest.

He's already throwing an 8% raise at the union.

Despite the worst economy in nearly four decades, the Bloomberg administration has allocated money to hike teacher salaries by 8 percent over the next two years, documents show -- even before it sits down for contract negotiation talks.

The surprising revelation of fat raises came when city Labor Commissioner James Hanley testified earlier this summer before the arbitration panel that recently awarded transit workers a handsome three-year, 11 percent pay boost.

Asked if the city was prepared to grant two generous 4 percent salary boosts for teachers, he responded, "That amount of money is allocated, yes."

City teachers' top maximum salaries would jump more than $8,100, to approximately $108,200. Starting pay would be hiked more than $3,700, to $49,245.

The potential raises would be nearly double the 2 percent inflation forecast for the next two years and would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions.

An 8 percent boost would be consistent with other union settlements since 2007.

It's asinine. The city can't afford any such raises, and is billions in the hole having had to raise numerous taxes and fees to balance the budget this year.

The City couldn't afford the raises delivered to the other unions, including sanitation, police, and firefighters. They can't afford this either.

Where is all this money coming from to provide for teachers' wages? What is the union going to have to give up in all this? I fear that the union will give up nothing in return, and taxpayers will be forced to shoulder an even higher tax burden.

Never mind that the Board of Education and the teachers union have set up a system that makes little to no sense. All while claiming that there is a shortage of teachers, the system engages in "excessing", where individual school budgets run short and are forced to dump teachers into the general pool.

Then, there's the rubber rooms where teachers who are on probation awaiting disciplinary hearings (often for months at a time) get paid all while sitting around doing nothing. There could be an immediate cost savings merely by speeding the turnaround on disciplinary proceedings. Instead of months (or years in some cases), clear the rubber room in days or weeks.

It shouldn't take that long, except that the union had its way and people get paid for doing nothing related to providing students with an education.