New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg updates New Yorkers on school governance at a news conference at City Hall |
NEW YORK (WPIX)—
The Bloomberg administration has allocated money to hike teacher salaries by 8 percent over the next two years.According to the New York Post, this plan is to be enacted before contract negotiation talks, and as a result, Bloomberg will have raised overall teacher pay by 50 percent.
This comes after city Labor Commissioner James Hanley testified before the arbitration panel that transit workers have recently been awarded a three-year, 11 percent pay boost. In a statement, Hanley stated that money has been allocated by the city to grant teachers two 4 percent salary boosts.
It is Bloomberg's staunch belief that the quality of a classroom teacher is essential in educating our youth. His priorities lie in boosting teacher pay so as to make instructors more accountable.
Labor insiders vehemently believe that the big raises are a result of the United Federation of Teachers' support of Bloomberg's control over schools and city pension reforms. The group was initially opposed to such mayoral control.
As a result of these raises, 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 2 percent inflation forecast would be nearly doubled. Taxpayers could look forward to paying hundreds of millions.
New York City currently faces a $5 billion-plus budget gap projected for the next fiscal year--a problem that is expected to be difficult to alleviate.
The debate continues as to whether or not the funds for the raise has been reserved already. Hanley denied that the deal is set in stone, as does a former high-ranking official who served under Mayor Ed Koch, who stated, "Every labor leader knows that the money is hidden somewhere in the budget and they don't know how much money."
City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser maintained that specific contract money has always been set aside for teachers. "We have a labor reserve. It funds the pattern. We've always been very clear about that," Loeser said.
Since taking over the schools, Bloomberg and his chancellor Joel Klein have launched a series of plans to improve the quality of teachers. Aside from the salary hike, these include tightening job evaluations to weed out incompetent instructors, offering school-based merit bonuses to staffers whose students show improvement on standardized English and math tests, and extending school days by 37.5 minutes to boost learning.
