Having grown its test security team, the state is now soliciting tips about improprieties. (GothamSchools)
A high-performing Vermont school is trying to privatize to ward off state efforts to intervene. (WSJ)
Michael M (parent still)
I read the excellent SchoolBook analysis…. and I’m STILL confused.
Larry Littlefield
“The employment protection provisions allow a worker whose route is dropped by one bus company to maintain his or her salary, pension and seniority when hired by another company.”
Pension eh? Is that pension plan fully funded? If so the pensions of the bus drivers are not at risk. If not (and I would guess not), they might end up with a federal takeover, which means a limit to payouts and no payouts before age 65,
I understand that our taxes will have to be increased, and public services will have to be cut, as much as is necessary to pay the pensions of public employees, even if those were retroactively enhanced and fraudulently described as costing nothing. Rather than having the funds get even deeper in the hole we should just get on to it, so everyone can see the reality of what has been done to them and made decisions on where to live, put their business, and send their kids to school accordingly.
But do we need to cut funding for the classroom to pay for private pensions too?
Two precedents. When the city had the MTA take over the private bus lines, their pension plans were deeply underfunded. The bus drivers went on strike. Part of the service cuts and fare increases have done to pay to make those pensions whole. There will be decades of pain.
The construction industry also retroactively enriched pensions for those cashing in and moving out around 2000, and the employees and employers cut their contributions. Now these “multi-employer” pension plans are in trouble. Unlike the public employee unions, they cannot basically say “pay up or go to jail even if we provide less or nothing in return.” So soaring pensions costs could not be passed on to customers — except the MTA, which has seen its construction costs soar. Instead the workers have been forced to accept higher contributions and pay cuts, and lots of construction companies have gone bankrupt.
BloombergMustGo
How is it that buying a third term, in clear violation of existing laws, is legal, but asking for some job protection based on service and experience is illegal?
This is not about money, despite Bloomberg’s best efforts to make it so, this is about breaking as many unions as possible before he is finally forced to abdicate his throne.
Larry Littlefield
Do you also agree with the UFT that Bloomberg is to blame for NYC’s wasteful high spending on school buses, which takes money away from teachers? Seems like a contradiction to me.
In any event, I was not thrilled with his term limit move either, so we agree on that. And I wish there were term limits for the state legislature too.
Michael M. (parent still)
Agreed in full.
I’m not seeing this in terms of money, per se. Imagine how one might manipulate “routes” to force an averaging-DOWN of existing jobs and pay.
The wheels on the (politics) bus go round and round…
Michael M. (parent still)
From SchoolBook, re: “The city now spends more than a billion dollars a year to bus over 150,000 students.”
Wowzers. That’s roughly $6,667 per student per year.
At 180 instructional days per year, that’s a whopping $37 per day per student !!!
Flerp
1. Since at least the 1970s, the Board of Ed used to award bus routes to private companies through a competitive bidding process. The competitive bidding process was mandated by state law. But the contracts all had provisions that gave hiring preference to existing drivers based on seniority. So if a new company won the route through the bidding process, it couldn’t bring in its own drivers.
2. These contracts covered routes for K-12 schools. Meanwhile, the NYC DOT handled bus contracts for the pre-K routes, and it used a bidding process that did not include seniority protections. So there were dual systems. The union (Amalgamated Transit, Local 1181) represented drivers in both systems.
3. In 1979, the city took the seniority provisions out of some of the contracts it was putting out to bid. The union went on strike, and a lawsuit was filed. The parties went to arbitration and reached a settlement that required the seniority protections to be in all contracts the Board of Ed put up for bidding.
BONUS: At that time, and for the next few decades (and even today?), the Genovese crime family was basically running Local 1181. They were skimming, extorting bus companies and operators, paying off bus inspectors to ignore safety violations, and that’s just the stuff they admitted to doing. For most of this time, Sal Battaglia, a Genovese “soldier,” was running the union. Who runs it now? Michael Cordiello, the guy who worked directly under Battaglia. This is the union that’s concerned about the safety of our children.
4. In 2006, the DOT transferred all its pre-K bus contracts to the Board of Ed (now the DOE). Local 1181 asked the DOE to make the pre-K contracts subject to the same seniority rule in the K-12 contracts. DOE said ok.
5. A bunch of bus companies sued the DOE, alleging that the seniority provision violated the state’s competitive bidding law because it discouraged competing bids and inflated costs. The DOE argued that the seniority provisions actually reduced costs, and that they also prevented disruptions in bus service.
6. The bus companies won, all the way up to the New York Court of Appeals. So the seniority provision in the pre-K contracts was unlawful.
7. Local 1181 is now striking because the city is not including a seniority provision in K-12 contracts that has already been ruled illegal in pre-K contracts.
Ellen
NY State reimburses NYC for busing cost…up to 90% of the cost. The reimbursement formulae are set by the legislature in Albany.
This money does NOT come out of classrooms.
This is a straight up union busting effort. NO more, NO less.
Larry Littlefield
Not so. And this has been a perpetual issue. The city has always claimed it is shortchanged on school transporation aid.
Tim
Ellen, can you produce a link showing exactly what the reimbursement rate is for New York City? I’m aware that NYSED does reimburse up to 90% for small districts, but since they claim to reimburse only about 54% of the total amount spent by all districts in the state, it stands to reason NYC’s rate is way less than 90%.
If there’s waste and fraud here, it doesn’t exactly give me comfort to know it’s being funded by state taxes rather than directly diverted from local school budgets. Because we New York City residents pay state taxes (and quite a lot of them) too.
Ellen
The rates for reimbursement of busing costs are set by the NY State Legislature. There are 5/6 formulae. Michale Rebell of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit has more information than I and can provide you with links.
Flerp
“If there’s waste and fraud here, it doesn’t exactly give me comfort to know it’s being funded by state taxes rather than directly diverted from local school budgets. Because we New York City residents pay state taxes (and quite a lot of them) too.”
To be more specific on this, NYC also relies on NY state for a huge portion of its education budget. The amount that NY state provides in any given year is a closed universe of dollars, and it includes dollars for classrooms and dollars for transportation. So even if not a single penny of NYC’s money was being spent on education transportation, those expenses would clearly have a negative impact on classroom spending (i.e. teacher salary).
wise owl
As I drove home today from school I saw the bus drivers striking in horrible weather. Their signs said Honk if you agree and I sure did honk my horn for them. I respect the Chicago teachers as well. I respect the TA when they were striking. These people have balls and I respect them for it. Uft needs to get some balls too. Stand up to the mayor. He gets paid by the city too, even though he claims that he donates his salary.
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