Metro

Fewer layoffs due for schools

Mayor Bloomberg dialed back his doomsday claims about teacher layoffs yesterday, saying steep cuts in state aid would be spread throughout city government instead of whacking only schools.

“We just cannot go and fire 25 percent of our teachers — even if the economics say you should,” Bloomberg said at City Hall. “So we’ll have to find another way to mitigate the pain . . . It would just filter through the rest of the system.”

Bloomberg last week laid out a worst-case scenario claiming the city may be forced to slash 21,000 of 75,000 teaching positions, mostly through layoffs, because of budget cuts.

The mayor said the schools still face layoffs, and that’s why he’s pushing Albany to repeal the “last in, first out” law that forces the city to get rid of newly hired teachers without regard to merit.

He said proposals discussed in Albany to get rid of nonteaching teachers without following “last in, first out” are “relatively meaningless.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), a close ally of the teachers union, said he was “open” to making changes. But he said higher-salaried, senior teachers have to be protected from abuse.

Meanwhile, teachers union President Mike Mulgrew slammed Bloomberg as “irresponsible” for broadcasting massive layoffs instead of fighting to prevent them.

But Mulgrew ducked questions on whether he would negotiate changes to “last in, first out.”

“I’m spending all my time trying to stop layoffs,” Mulgrew said.

Additional reporting by David Seifman

fredric.dicker@nypost.com