New York City's teachers union filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Mayor Eric Adams after cutting the public school's budget, which could weaken key education initiatives and violate state law.
The United Federation of Teachers accused the Mayor of overestimating the city's fiscal woes to push through a blunt austerity measure that was illegal and unnecessary.
NY Teachers File Lawsuit Against Adams
The lawsuit prevents New York City from reducing educational spending unless revenues decline. This year, the city outperformed revenue expectations, and the suit alleges that the mid-year education cuts would damage universal prekindergarten and after-school programs and special needs students.
On Thursday, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a news conference that they never had an administration try to cut the school's budget when they had historic reserves and their revenues were up. He warned that cutting educational funding would be difficult and ugly.
"The administration can't go around touting the tourism recovery and the return of the city's pre-pandemic jobs and then create a fiscal crisis and cut education because of its own mismanagement of the asylum seeker problem," Mulgrew added.
Adams has recently faced consequences over a multibillion-dollar budget cut announced last month. The budget cut has multiple cutbacks, such as fewer hours at public libraries, elimination of parks and sanitation programs, and restriction of police hiring.
His poll numbers have dropped to the lowest since taking office nearly two years ago. He was now facing another lawsuit from the city's largest public-sector union, DC 37, which aimed to stop the budget cuts.
Meanwhile, a recent analysis from the Independent Budget Office bolsters the union's contention that the city's fiscal crisis was not as alarming as the Mayor has made it out to be. The agency claimed that the city will end the fiscal year in June with a budget surplus of $3.6 billion, leading to a far more manageable budget gap of $1.8 billion next year.
In the lawsuit, the teachers' union has brought up the estimate as proof that Adams's calculatingly foreboding picture of New York City's finances was not based on reality.
Furthermore, the lawsuit claimed that the Mayor's recent actions were driven more by a budget management, leadership, and problem-solving crisis than an influx of migrants to New York.
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Parents, Teachers Rally
On Thursday morning, parents, teachers, and residents rallied in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for the city to reverse cuts to the budget for school crossing guards.
Erika Gonzalez, a Bronx parent, said they were not getting the services before the budget cuts. She said she could already imagine what would happen after the approval of the budget cuts.
Mulgrew claimed that the cuts were based on a fiscal crisis that they felt was completely fabricated. He noted that they were already witnessing more overcrowded classrooms and supply shortages.
Furthermore, Michael Elsen-Rooney, with Chalkbeat New York, also noted that schools might have to dip into their budget to pay paraprofessionals, who are teaching assistants who often work one-on-one with students with significant needs.
