Public Employee Press

Chancellor says no layoffs coming at SCA

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein told union leaders that he will not lay off members at the School Construction Authority, where downsizing rumors ran rampant earlier this year.

At a Feb. 10 meeting, Klein told a delegation from DC 37 and Local 375 that unionized SCA staff can count on keeping their jobs for the foreseeable future.

Low morale
The union group was led by DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 President Claude Fort, 1st Vice President Jon Forster and 2nd Vice President Michelle Keller. Morale has remained low at the SCA, where Local 375 recently lost more than 100 members in architectural, engineering and other technical titles as the agency stepped up its use of consultants.

Fears about another round of layoffs were fueled by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s January “State of the City” message, which indicated the staff would drop from 515 in November 2004 to 453 by June 2006.

Adding to those fears, the mayor’s proposed budget for next year calls for a spending reduction in the first year of the SCA’s $13.5 billion five-year capital construction plan.

“While we don’t have a formal, ironclad agreement on the job security of our members at the SCA, the chancellor did indicate his strong commitment to avoiding future layoffs,” Roberts said.

“He basically ensured us that we could go back to our members and say that there will be no layoffs, not in the near future,” Fort said.

Klein indicated that despite the cut in the first year of the capital plan, he anticipated that SCA could count on adequate funding for school projects in coming years.

“We appreciated the chance to address the union’s concerns about in-house staffing to the chancellor, and we feel the meeting was very productive,” said Stephanie Velez, director of the DC 37 Professional Division.

“We came away from the meeting with a clear commitment from the chancellor to keep the dialog going,” Ms. Velez said.

Lawsuit hits consultant use
More than 160 consultants are doing various technical jobs at the SCA, which had an in-house staff of 933 at the end of 2001, before the Dept. of Education took over the independent agency.

The union has an outstanding lawsuit charging that the SCA is in violation of a law requiring that 40 percent of the design, drafting and inspection work be done in-house.

On Feb. 14, a state judge ruled that annual spending on the city’s public schools must be increased by $5.6 billion in order to guarantee schoolchildren a sound education under the state constitution.

The judge also called for an additional $9.2 billion to be spent on school construction and repairs over five years to address overcrowding.