Metro

Behind UFT deal

Mayor Bloomberg lost the battle of the budget in March when Albany wouldn’t give him a pass to lay off teachers without regard to seniority.

That didn’t stop the mayor from continuing to threaten massive layoffs in an attempt to extract givebacks from the teachers union.

But because of the “last in, first out” layoff rule, the threats were hollow — and everyone knew it.

The last thing “the education mayor” wanted was to wipe out 4,100 of the most recently hired teachers, a spirited corps his own administration had recruited to help reform the system.

When City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and council Finance Chairman Dominic Recchia, both mayoral allies, announced publicly they would do “everything” in their power to block the layoffs, Bloomberg was left with not much of a hand to play.

He couldn’t pass the budget without them and didn’t want a debilitating stalemate. So it was on to Plan B to salvage what he could. A showdown with the teachers would have to wait.

The mayor came close to convincing all the municipal unions to turn over more than $200 million from an unused health-benefits stabilization fund to “buy back” more than 5,000 jobs he had placed at risk.

When that deal fell apart, largely because of resistance from District Council 37, there was little left to do but stitch together a compromise with the United Federation of Teachers.

On Friday, mayoral aides met with UFT President Mike Mulgrew and quickly found a way to avert layoffs that had been hovering for most of the year.

And by that night, Bloomberg and Quinn gathered with city lawmakers and the head of the teachers union to announce a deal that would save more than 4,000 teachers’ jobs and 20 fire companies and restore some funding for child-care services, libraries, senior centers and social services.

“They were there to make a deal,” said one source. “Mulgrew was hardly in a position to be stubborn.”

There was little reason for Mulgrew to fight. All he gave up was one year’s worth of sabbaticals for his members. The union also allowed teachers in a reserve pool without assignments to fill in as substitutes, which seems to be as much about common sense as budget savings.

The total value of the UFT’s givebacks was put at $57 million. The teacher jobs preserved were valued at $218 million.

It was the city ($109 million) and the council ($52 million) that picked up most of the bill.

Bloomberg did manage to protect $2 billion socked away in a health-trust fund for retirees, despite intense pressure within the council to use some of the funds now instead of over the next two years.

He also is laying off more than 1,000 workers, mostly members of DC 37, who, he charged, wouldn’t come to the table with savings in the same way as the UFT. Workers in child services, health, housing, transportation parks, hospitals — and even some DC 37 members in the school system — now face the ax.

In a fascinating footnote, the 20 fire companies Bloomberg wanted to close were spared after Steve Cassidy, the president of the firefighters’ union, helped the administration lobby the state Legislature to authorize — of all things — metered cabs in the outer boroughs.

But at the end of the day, there were no game changers in this year’s budget.

Next year, it’s back to the same starting point.

david.seifman@nypost.com