Our schools and our city now face their greatest crisis. Yet, during this crucial time, efforts to obtain adequate financial support have been undermined in the editorial columns of The New York Times and by Mayor Lindsay, who should be leading the fight for the city.
In an April 28 editorial, the New York Times attacked municipal unions for pushing payroll costs up by 40% over a period of two years. The attack, which quite apparently sought to make a scapegoat of teachers and other public employees, implied that public employees have negotiated wage scales which are unreasonable. This implication is unjustified. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has determined that a "moderate standard budget" for a family of four in New York City is $12,234. This budget allows for little luxury. It allows for the use of public transportation or the purchase of a 2-year old used car every 4 years, and a diet which includes meat once a day and no more than one egg a day for each person. It budgets a new TV set every IO years and one movie every 4 weeks. The average teacher salary is below this "moderate standard " City payroll costs went up because the city had been, for thousands of its employees, a poverty employer - with school aides, paraprofessionals and many others earning under $3,000 a year, and teachers with years of service having incomes below the "moderate budget." The 40% payroll increase must be placed in perspective.
In many instances, salary increases were needed in order to bring the salaries of city employees up to the level of what welfare would pay these same employees if they didn't work. (The Times, in its editorial, went on to suggest that the thousands of employees who demonstrated in Albany last Tuesday, away from their duties for the day, "could be spared on a full-time basis without loss to the efficiency of .. .local government." The suggestion smacks of vindictiveness rather than reason. Should the absence of the New York Times during the many days of the newspaper strike be taken as evidence that the Times could be spared on a full time basis without loss to the city?)
Last week Mayor Lindsay seemed to be ready to lead a battle for sufficient funds for the city, to assure that next year's services would be no less than this year's. Appearing at the United Federation of Teachers Spring Conference luncheon, he denounced budget cuts as a capitulation to the conservative right wing of the legislature. This week the Mayor joined in the capitulation when, succumbing to editorial criticism in the Times and other media, he proposed a budget, which would drastically cut city services. Instead of leading in battle, he deserted his supporters in the midst of the fray.
A Time For Leadership
Perhaps the Mayor's abdication of responsibility could have been predicted. Last week, he stated (in remarks paralleling those of Congresswoman Bella Abzug), that our schools and our cities could not get adequate funds unless American forces withdrew from Vietnam. To take such a position in the middle of a fight with Albany is to accept defeat in the current crisis and to provide an excuse for the budget-cutters. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that, if the war ended, the funds now allocated to the military would be used for education and for the rehabilitation of our cities; they could be used for other military purposes or for support of tax decreases. The Vietnam argument diverts our attention from the fact that there is enough wealth in our society to pay for decent education. We should not be talking or thinking about reducing services for children while many who earned more than a million dollars last year do not pay a penny in taxes; while multi-million dollar institutions remain tax exempt, in a period in which homeowners and wage-earners are taxed too heavily. Raising the Vietnam issue may do much to further the national aspirations of politicians, but it does nothing to solve the New York City fiscal crisis.
With the Mayor leading a retreat, it is now up to the parents, teachers, unions and civil rights groups to assume leadership in the fight to guarantee a livable city.