Uptown Radio

People wait in line to enter the Northern Brooklyn Food Stamp and DeKalb Job Center on Friday, Feb. 24. Photo by Mark Lennihan, AP.

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BY ANNIE RUSSELL

Host: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo vowed in his State of the State address in January to get rid of a practice he thinks is invasive and unfair.

CUOMO: “I’m saying stop fingerprinting for families with children for food.”

HOST: New York State started doing this in 1996 to prevent fraud and clerical errors, but stopped in 2007. Only New York City requires it now, along with the state of Arizona. California and Texas recently passed laws to end the practice. New Yorkers are divided on the issue, but there’s at least one strong advocate: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Annie Russell reports.

RUSSELL: June Scott is waiting to meet with her social worker in a sunny Hell’s Kitchen office.

She’s 38, and has a disability that allows her to collect Social Security Income.

She’s here today because she wants help finding a job. She says fingerprinting is an invasion of privacy.

SCOTT: If you want food, and you can’t afford to buy food, why should you be fingerprinted for that? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

RUSSELL: Scott isn’t on food stamps right now, and says she would not apply if it meant she had to be fingerprinted.

This is one of Cuomo’s big points. Just over a million New York City residents are on food stamps, but he says an additional thirty percent are eligible. He thinks fingerprinting scares them away.

June Scott’s social worker, Yan Bennis, isn’t so sure. He helps his clients apply for food stamps all the time.

BENNIS: I think that as long as it prevents fraud and everything else I think it’s worth it and we would wind up saving money that way.

RUSSELL: Mayor Bloomberg agrees. On his weekly show on WOR Radio last Friday, he said the policy saved the city 5 million dollars last year in overpayments.

It’s not clear whether those were fraud or errors, but he says the savings prove the policy is working.

BLOOMBERG: It’s no stigma because all of our city employees do it. Most companies do it in this day and age. I don’t know who doesn’t. It’s not painful, it doesn’t take any time.

RUSSELL: City employees are fingerprinted, but that’s not the case everywhere.

A spokesperson for the company the mayor founded, Bloomberg LP, said it does not fingerprint incoming employees, but uses fingerprinting for computer access.

Social worker Yan Bennis adds that most people on food stamps are never fingerprinted.

Anyone who applied before 1996 was grandfathered in.

But if Cuomo wants to get rid of the practice, he may have more support in 2013. Everyone who’s expressed interest in running for New York City mayor next year agrees that fingerprinting should stop.

Annie Russell, Columbia Radio News.

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Even before the budget was officially announced to the public, city council members expressed disappointment.

“This is a lot of pain that’s been inflicted by Albany and Washington,” said Lewis Fidler, Brooklyn (D). “It’s really not our doing.  We’re going to have to back peddle and fill a lot of holes they inflicted on us.”

A few minutes later, Mayor Bloomberg began his presentation ready for the criticism.

He says the city’s already used two-thirds of its reserve to fill in gaps and will spend the rest next year.

The hot button issue was teachers.

“I’m not trying to lay off teachers,” Bloomberg told the audience.

But he says that’s what will happen.  Some will leave through retirement.  But about 4,100 teachers will leave through the “last in, first out” policy which Bloomberg has said he doesn’t like.

After teachers, the Police department faces the largest cuts, nearly 200 million dollars.

Next comes the fire department, which stands to lose 94 million dollars in funding.

The mayor says he knows fire fighters will find it very tough.

“Two commissioners jobs are to keep bringing down crime and deaths by fire and response rates and to do it with less,” he said.

Bloomberg does stress his total confidence in the two departments.

But Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano is concerned.

There’s never a good time to close a fire co, never.” Cassano said after the announcement.  “If it’s twenty and we have to do that by July 1, those notices have to go out next week.”

Fire companies are different from stations.  Several companies can work out of the same station, but cutting twenty companies means 600 fire fighters.

Al Hagan is represents fire department lieutenants, captains and chiefs through the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

He says the cuts could really hurt the public.

“Fire protection in the city of New York is like a cloth,” Hagan said in a phone interview. “And every company represents a thread in that cloth. When the thread count goes down, the entire fabric becomes weaker.”

Hagan has seen the city talk about cuts before.  Cuts have happened in the past. And at times the city councils stepped in to restore the funds.   But he doesn’t think that will happen this time.

He thinks the mayor is taking the wrong approach to balance the budget, as does James Parrot, a city government expert at the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Parrot says Bloomberg should also look at ways to increase the city’s income.

“There’s so much focus on cutting government and reducing the number of public sector workers at a time when unemployment is very high,” Parrot said Friday.

“Cutting government budgets is only going to make the economic situation worse.”

Parrot acknowledges the mayor faces similar problems seen in other cities across the nation.  A recession where funds are scares and cuts are becoming more common.

Bloomberg now has to convince the city council to pass his plan by July First.  The debate has already begun.

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Teacher layouts may affect P.S. 65 in East New York. Larry Tung/Columbia Radio News

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new budget proposal has some hard news for public school teachers.  He says he needs to cut more than 6000 of them from the city’s payroll.  That’s about 8 percent of the city’s public school educators.  If the cut actually happens, it would be the biggest teacher layoff since the 1970s.

It’s 3pm – And school’s out for kindergarteners at P.S. 65 in East New York, Brooklyn.

One of their teachers, Luz Paternostro is waiting outside with them until they’re picked up.

A product of New York City public schools, the 22-year-old says she knew she wanted to teach when she was a student at Queens College.

“It’s fascinating to see children learn and to be the person who teaches them because it’s something that they will carry on with their life forever,” said Paternostro. “It makes you feel like you are making a real difference.  You are teaching the future.”

But it is Paternostro’s future that’s uncertain right now.

If the budget passes, about 4600 teachers will be laid off.  And the 1500 that will retire or resign next year….will not be replaced.

New York State law mandates that as the last teacher hired at P.S. 65, Paternostro would be the first one out.

She doesn’t think that’s fair.

“There are other factors that should be considered,” said Paternostro. “There are excellent teacher who have been in the system a long time that definitely should have their jobs.  Just as there are also new teachers who deserve that opportunity to gain that experience that have the same qualities who just perform as well.”

Mayor Bloomberg shares her view.

He first threatened to cut 21 thousand teachers … after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a massive cut in state funding earlier this month.

Many critics say that was the mayor’s push to abolish this “Last in, first out” law. Bloomberg says it should be changed immediately.

“We have great teachers,” said Bloomberg. “And I want to keep the very best if we have to lay off teachers.”

But determining the best teachers is tricky.

Wendy Glash is the union rep at P.S. 65 and a teacher with 25 years of experience.  She says ratings are very subjective.

“It depends on who your supervisor is,” said Glash.”That will guide your rating. I don’t think that, if you want to lay off people based on those ratings, that that’s a fair and equitable way.”

P.S. 65 is one of the top-rated schools in the district and attracts many students.

But almost half of its teachers have less than 5 years of experience.  So they are in danger to be laid off.

PTA President Karina Cevallos says there are barely enough teachers.

“Imagine more kids in the class,” said Cevallos. ”I don’t know how they are going to deal with it.”

That’s left for P.S. 65’s principal, Daysi Garcia, to deal with. She says the mayor and the teachers’ union have been able to works this out in other years.  

“Whatever tools they use to come to the table to try to make those agreements,” said Garcia. “They do it nicely so far year after year. We haven’t had to cut our teachers.”

The mayor doesn’t want to cut teachers, either.

He will negotiate with the city council and most likely come up with another proposal in May.

The council is supposed to vote on the budget by the end of June, right around the end of the school year.