New York to cut nearly 11,000 jobs
On Thursday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the city’s fiscal year 2011 budget, which includes plans to eliminate nearly 11,000 city jobs. Most of those cuts, more than 6,400, would be teachers and “other pedagogical positions” in the city’s Department of Education.
Bloomberg said state budget cuts forced the cuts in the city’s budget.”Our ability to put together a balanced budget is very seriously hampered by state government’s continued inaction in addressing its own budget problems,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “[Gov. David Paterson has] proposed a budget that, in effect, balances the state’s books by starving New York City, and we are still facing that very grim outlook. We’ve kept our own fiscal house in order … while spending in Albany has continued to spiral out of control.”
Bloomberg’s budget assumes a reduction in the amount of tax dollars the state returns to the city for education by $493 million. As a result, 6,414 teachers and other pedagogical positions will be eliminated in the coming school year — 4,419 through layoffs and 1,995 through attrition. The budget also proposes a $1.3 billion gap-closing program for other city agencies that will include the elimination of another 4,583 city positions, also through layoffs and attrition. Approximately $800 million of the $1.3 billion in agency gap closing actions are necessary because of the assumed impact of the state budget, according to Bloomberg’s office. An increase in the amount of tax dollars the state returns to the city above the amount assumed in the FY2011 city budget would mitigate the amount of budget cuts that have been proposed, Bloomberg’s office contends.
Read Bloomberg’s entire statement.