Call To Action: UFT Prepares to Go to War Over Mayor Adam’s Budget Cuts --Send letters to City Council, now

Tell NYC's Mayor and City Council to not defund our New York City Public Schools

UFT members received an alarming email from President Michael Mulgrew about the latest round of budget cuts that will affect many city agencies, including our New York City schools.

Clearly, it’s an urgent call to action because of the direness of the moment.

Here is Mulgrew’s call to action:

In his latest attack on our school system, Mayor Adams announced a plan to slash 5% of the DOE’s overall budget last week, which could take effect as early as mid-December. Funding will be cut for after-school programs, per session, per diem coverages, early childhood education, computer science, community schools, mental health and more.

Today, he even more audaciously announced he’s moving forward with an additional 5% cut and asked city agencies to submit plans for those cuts by Dec. 8. He has threatened to make a third round of cuts of equal size before June.

We won’t stand for this. No mayor has tried to slash the city budget when the city’s finances are in such good shape. It’s just plain unacceptable.

One quick and meaningful thing you should do right now is tell your City Council representative to stand up for our kids. The City Council has the ability to intervene, but so far they have failed to act.

Tell your Council Member to reject these cuts, now

We also need to let the public know about the real damage that the mayor’s budget cuts will do to our schools and our school communities.

Please share this Facebook graphic with your Facebook friends.

These cuts to school funding are driven by City Hall's false political narrative that New York City is about to fall off a fiscal cliff. City revenues are, in fact, higher than expected, the city’s reserves are at a near-record high, and state aid has increased.

The influx of asylum seekers has cost the city money, but the mayor has exploited that issue to vastly inflate city expenses for the next four years.

All these cuts to school funding will set us back at a time when we are finally addressing a decades-long inequity by lowering New York City class sizes.

We will not allow the mayor to perpetrate this fraud on our city. We must mobilize to fight these damaging cuts and expose their harm to our students.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

---

I am also asking that readers of ‘The Wire’ send these letters to City Council. You can do so by clicking on the button below. Be sure to use your local school’s address, if you are not a resident of New York City.

This is a good start, but if you haven’t already read the co-chair of New Action, Nick Bacon’s most recent post that calls for more meaningful mobilizing and organizing around this crisis, you need to read it here.

---