(
)
State lawmakers are secretly eyeing a compromise that would allow Mayor Bloomberg to fire thousands of “nonteaching teachers” without consideration of the “last in, first out” law, The Post has learned.
The plan, being discussed at the highest levels of the Legislature and with aides to Bloomberg, would grant the mayor the right to fire between 2,000 to 4,000 nonclassroom teachers — including all those who formerly languished in the notorious “rubber room” under disciplinary charges.
The plan would also target members of the “absent teacher reserve pool” — which includes nonworking but on-the-payroll teachers from schools that have been shut down because of poor performance — and teachers assigned only to “administrative functions,” sources said.
Bloomberg warned Friday that the city might be forced to lay off as many as 20,000 teachers because of a combination of a city revenue shortfall and the severe state budget cuts to be unveiled tomorrow by Gov. Cuomo. If the plan becomes reality, about 10 to 20 percent of teachers slated for layoffs simply because they were hired last would be spared.
Bloomberg, conceding that significant teacher cuts are inevitable, has launched an aggressive campaign to overturn the state law that requires the city to fire teachers on the basis of seniority and not competence.
State lawmakers privately say Bloomberg can’t win full repeal of the law because of intense union opposition and concerns over the criteria the mayor would use to justify teacher dismissals.
But the dismissal of poorly performing “nonteaching teachers” was described by a top state official as “potentially doable.”
Cuomo and Senate Republicans have signaled they’re open to such a measure, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and his union-funded Democratic Conference have yet to weigh in.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg lambasted the current rules in a speech at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn yesterday and demanded that Albany take action.
“I say enough with Albany rules. You just cannot do this. If the governor’s budget contains education cuts, it must also contain changes to the law so that we can take merit into account when making these difficult decisions. It must allow us to keep our best teachers,” he said.
He warned it was “conceivable” the city would have to lay off “nearly every teacher hired in the last five years — the ones who are the very future of our school system. This is serious.”
Laying off the 20,000 newest teachers would hit poorest neighborhoods hardest, because schools in those areas tend to have the freshest faces on the job.
“Albany rules say that when it comes to teaching, talent doesn’t matter, results don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how long you’ve been in the system,” Bloomberg said.
“We’ve worked too hard these last years to improve our schools, and I can just tell you I will be out there fighting with every breath I have to make sure we can keep that progress going, because teachers really have been at the heart of that progress.”
*
Cuomo will get a surprise wet kiss from the Senate GOP today — bolstering his strength with the Legislature a day before he unveils his tough new budget plan firing thousands of workers and cutting $10 billion in projected spending.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) plans to pass the governor’s controversial proposed 2 percent cap on most local and school property taxes outside New York City, a popular proposal with voters, but one that is bitterly opposed by public-employee unions and cash-poor local governments.
Passage of the cap, which was quietly introduced in the Senate at 11 p.m. Friday so that it could “age” for approval today, will give Cuomo a major political boost just hours before his public approval is likely to take a beating because of his austere budget plans.
*
The hottest question around the mahogany-lined walls of the Senate these days is: “Which Democrat is wearing a wire?”
The paranoia over a possible criminal probe — always an undercurrent around a Legislature that has seen several members indicted in recent years — is peaking amid a federal investigation of the AEG-Aqueduct bid-rigging scandal to which key Democratic leaders were linked in a bombshell inspector general’s report last fall.
Also fueling the paranoia are probes of pork-barrel member items distributed by outer-borough Democrats, and, the widespread question goes, who knows what else?
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg