DOE keeping 930 teachers $tuck in limbo
The city keeps 930 excess teachers on the payroll and many other school employees without permanent jobs, The Post has learned.
As of this month, the tenured teachers alone cost the city Department of Education close to $100 million a year in salary and benefits but remain idle or serve as roving substitutes.
DOE officials refused multiple requests to reveal the number of guidance counselors, social workers, secretaries and others in the Absent Teacher Reserve.
Despite the surplus personnel, the DOE continues to beef up its workforce.
“We hired over 5,000 teachers over the summer,” Chancellor Richard Carranza boasted in a radio interview on Hot97 last month.
DOE spokeswoman Danielle Filson corrected Carranza, saying the department hired about 4,800 new “teachers, guidance counselors and social workers.”
When school started in 2018, the DOE had 1,200 employees in the ATR at a cost of $136 million, the Citizens Budget Commission found.
The ATR numbers have fluctuated since 2005, when then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg gave principals more control over hiring. The pool includes tenured employees who lost positions when schools closed or downsized and others disciplined for misconduct or incompetence.
This year, the DOE offered $50,000 buyouts to those in the ATR. About 170 teachers, most near retirement, took the severance deal, costing a total $8.5 million, the DOE said.
In a new initiative, the DOE is offering ATR teachers to “a small number” of principals free of charge, The Post learned.
If principals hire the teachers, the department will fully fund their salaries for as long as the teachers work in their schools.
One of those teachers is Francesco Portelos, a technology instructor who was hired at IS 27 on Staten Island. His salary is $105,400.
“My principal appreciates my work, but at the end of the day I don’t cost him anything,” he said.
Ironically, the DOE tried to fire Portelos for insubordination in 2014 after he accused a former principal of fraud and misconduct, but a hearing officer only fined him $10,000. He then spent five years in the ATR, rotating among 25 schools.
“I feel I have more purpose now with my own students,” he said. “I can build rapport, which makes a big difference in teaching.”
Ana Champeny, city studies director for the commission, said: “The city is definitely trying to make hiring teachers in the ATR attractive to principals. In light of the substantial cost, we would like to see the DOE place as many ATR teachers as possible, assuming they are qualified and competent.”