Boston could lose 212 teachers

(Report 3-18-09-2)

Mayor threatens BTU

by Richard Weir
DNN Reports!
Tuesday, Mar. 18, 2009

The number of teachers and classroom aides who face layoffs has more than doubled to nearly 212 positions, Mayor Menino said yesterday as he ramped up his campaign to get their unyielding union to accept a wage freeze to spare their jobs.

“Without a wage freeze, these people will be eliminated. It’s as simple as that,” Menino said in an interview, noting that if the Boston Teachers Union agrees to forgo its contracted wage increases for its nearly 7,000 teachers and paraprofessionals, the city could save $18.8 million.

BTU president Richard Stutman accused the city of “stonewalling,” saying he has been waiting for two weeks to “get the books on the city’s” spending, revenues and other financial data, including the size of its rainy-day fund.

“If they put as much effort in finding this information as they do in trying to bully us, we’d have (it) by now,” said Stutman. “We want to do our part to cooperate. We are more than willing to sit down with the city and discuss layoffs and a variety of solutions to the city’s problems. We are not being reticent. We are asking the city to be transparent.”

The mayor has said some 700 city workers, including “more than 100 teachers,” could be laid off if the city’s 44 unions did not agree to wage freezes. The city at the time was facing a $131 million budget gap. It now stands at $107 million due to savings in health insurance plans, a windfall of $21 million in federal stimulus funds ($17 million for schools and $3.9 for police) and agreements by 18 unions to take wage freezes.