As teachers and other educators wait until 2020 to receive the full raises and back pay most other city workers took home between 2008 and 2010, the city is projected to end the 2016 fiscal year with plenty of money to spare. This year's projected surplus is $3.4 billion.
According to State Comptroller Thomas Di Napoli, "The projected 2016 surplus stems largely from unanticipated growth in tax revenues, debt service and agency savings, and a drawdown of reserves not needed in the current year."
Di Napoli might want to add to this a big thank you from the city to UFT President Michael Mulgrew for settling for 10% over 7 years as a pattern raise for municipal unions and deferring teacher raises of 4% and 4% from the last round of bargaining until 2018. As of today only half of the raises from the last round have been added to our pay. The retroactive money from those years that is essentially an interest free loan we made to the city won't be fully paid back to us until 2020.
As the city ends another year with billions of dollars of surplus cash, teachers will be getting repaid a big fat 0% of the money in 2016 for the work we did from 2009-2011. The next payment date isn't until October 1, 2017. Throw in higher health care costs, no relief from administrator abuse or anything on class sizes or any other improvement in our working conditions and this adds up to a truly lousy contract that is not getting better as it ages.
At least the majority of high school teachers who voted held Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus accountable by voting for opposition groups in the recent UFT election. Now everyone needs to know what's going on.
Di Napoli notes a slowing economy and sees some storm clouds on the horizon. I think we can reasonably forecast that the city will be crying poverty again around the time our contract is up in 2018. Unity will more than likely be telling us the city is broke too.
8 comments:
Obviously, teachers are idiots. I begged them to vote no. Got shouted down by UFT reps at every school I rotated to...And teachers are too stupid to read and research the contract. Some dont even know who Mulgrew is...Im embarrassed to be part of this group.
Dont worry, we will have the last part of our retro at the 2020 presidential election.
Donald Trump or Hillary's reelection. This is all depressing.
Is our retroactive pay, much of which is due after this lousy contract expires, protected by the Triborough Clause if De Blasio or his successor claim poverty in the event of a recession/financial crisis after its expiration?
I think we can safely assume that our faux Tough Guy President will again take years to negotiate a new one, and we will thus again be working without a contract after 2018.
Can we even count on seeing that retro if a crisis hits, or can we expect Mulgrew to urge us to bail out the city yet again?
Mulgrew said, if they dont pay us the retro, we go to court to get it. I think the UFT will now accept future, on time raises of 1%, as this is the new precedent, and we now see that waiting doesnt work , because we never see the past money. So 1%-2% every year will probably be future contracts.
Agree with JR, if de Blasio wins reelection in 2017, I can see a 3 year extension for a total of 4-5 percent. 1 plus 1.5 plus 2.
That is a best case.
We were taught a lesson, dont ever let the contract expire or turn one down because we will wait a decade or more to get that back pay. Getting an on time 1 or 2 percent per year is something most people will take over getting a little more 15 years later, especially with the newly invented clause which states you have to be in service to get the back pay you already earned.
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