The New York City teachers’ union sued Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday, claiming he broke the law by imposing $550 million in mid-year spending cuts to the public school system as the Big Apple grapples with a migrant crisis.
The United Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit accuses Adams of violating a state law that bars the city from slashing education spending unless overall revenues decline — claiming tax revenues actually rose last year, according to the filing in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“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,” said UFT president Mike Mulgrew.
“Our schools and our families deserve better.”
The lawsuit also cites another provision in state law that requires local school districts to use new state funds to supplement spending for education, not to replace local contributions.
The complaint, which asks a judge to reinstate the Department of Education budget to last year’s levels, is the second such lawsuit filed over the cuts.
City spending on schools has steadily risen in recent years, though the enrollment has plummeted from 1.1 million a generation ago to 915,000.
Even with a migrant crisis, the city school system added just 8,000 students this year, reversing an eight year decline.
The UFT’s suit came after Adams in June agreed to give teachers fat pay hikes and bonuses of up to 20% under a new five-year, $6.4 billion labor contract.
The raises in the labor contract, overwhelmingly approved by the UFT membership, will raise the top salaries of the longest serving teachers to more than $150,000.
The pay hikes and union contract are not impacted by the budget cuts.
The mayor has argued the cuts are necessary to compensate in part for billions of dollars in added costs to care for the unrelenting influx of tens of thousands of migrants flooding the city.
He plans two more rounds of cuts of 5%, in January and in the spring, if the federal government and Albany don’t deliver more aid to address the migrant crisis.
The union says the cumulative cuts to schools could hit $2 billion.
The cuts announced in November have already affected the universal pre-K slots, after-school and planned summer school programs and computer science instruction, the UFT lawsuit claims
The lawsuit challenges the mayor’s handling of the migrant crisis, alleging that the Adams administration’s claim the crisis will cost $11 billion over the next two years is “an unverified estimate.”
“The law does not permit school funding to be used as a political bargaining chip; and cutting essential services to the City’s schools is not a substitute for the mayoral leadership and advocacy on behalf of New Yorkers needed to obtain federal and state support,” the suit states.
Another union, District Council 37 which represents a range of city clerical, office and parks workers, filed a similar suit to block budget cuts.
Adams, during an unrelated press conference, defended his action.
“From time to time, friends disagree. Sometimes it ends up in a boardroom and sometimes it ends up in a courtroom,” he said.
“We need the courts to determine what the next steps are.”
Adams pointed out that unionized workers, including teachers have personally thanked him for pay raises.
“These are smart guys. …They know the challenges we are facing,” he said of Mulgrew and DC 37 president Henry Garrigo, referring to the migrant crisis.
“This should not be happening to New York.”