Mayor’s Budget Seeks to Lay Off 5% of Teachers

[Gerald]

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presenting his budget on Friday at City Hall. The spending plan called for laying off 5,400 city workers.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed on Friday to lay off 5,400 New York City workers, including 5 percent of all schoolteachers, in what would be the first significant city job cuts in two decades.

The proposed reductions, which Mr. Bloomberg said had been made necessary by sharp drops in state and federal aid, would leave the city with 289,000 municipal employees, its smallest work force since he took office in 2002. The mayor would also slightly reduce the city’s overall spending, to $65.7 billion. His austere budget proposal follows years in which he expanded city spending and granted pay raises to city employees.

“This budget is full of difficult decisions,” Mr. Bloomberg said at City Hall during a presentation of his spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/ny...1&ref=nyregion


Note: May 6, 2011