NYCivic

After the Fast: Reflections on New York

By Henry J. Stern
September 27, 2004

Allies, Buddies or Collaborators?

The Sun describes at length today the amicable relationship between Assembly Speaker Silver and Mayor Bloomberg (William F, Hammond, Jr., "Mayor Emerges as Silver Crony," p1). The inference one can draw from this article is that, since Silver is under fire from Governor Pataki as a leader of a dysfunctional Legislature, the mayor is somehow complicit with the speaker, and siding against Pataki and Senate Leader Bruno, who seem to be moving closer to each other than last year, when Bruno co-operated with Silver to override 119 Pataki budget vetoes.

In fact, the mayor and the speaker have overlapping constituencies, centered around New York City and Democratic voters. It is when the speaker and the mayor do not get along, as in 1999, when awful things happen (such as the repeal of the commuter tax). The mayor is right in cottoning up to the speaker, if only for the business reason that it helps the city. They also reputedly like each other, to the extent that any politician can like anyone else in the same line of work. How long will this alliance between the Upper East Side and the Lower East Sides endure? We'll find out next year.

The Counter-revolution: People Like It

The Post reflects its ideology on recent city history in two editorials today. The first, "The Way We Were...," contrasts the city's condition now with the situation in the Dinkins era, twelve years ago. The Post is ironic in using the title of a Barbra Streisand movie for an attack on the political and social mores that she is said to exemplify. It is fascinating to see how public policy and attitudes have changed in twelve years. But no matter how well the city may be doing today, we are always one recession or one election removed from fiscal disaster. And voracious labor unions, doing what they are supposed to do in the financial interest of their current membership, may thirst to defeat a decent mayor, in the hope of getting a better deal from a rival who has promised them the moon, which, of course, is not in his pocket.

"When Worlds Collide": 1932 and 2005

The second editorial, "…and Things to Come," sounds the tocsin about lower revenues coming in from business taxes because of a 61% drop in Wall Street profits last quarter. This loss is on top of the $3.7 billion deficit already forecast for fiscal year 2006, which starts nine months from now, on July 1, 2005. As the noodge keeps saying, the longer the city government, mayor and Council do nothing, the sharper the FY 2006 cuts will have to be.

Remember the book, "When Worlds Collide", 1932, by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie, and the movies based on it in which a scientist warns that a large asteroid is heading for a collision with Earth. No one believes him until it is too late. I am no astronomer, but either something big and bad is coming our way, or the mayor's apparent acquiescence to impending implosion is the mirror image of our President warning of weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist. Although the deficit will not arrive in 45 minutes, as we were told the weapons could, the fiscal crunch is just 278 days away. The countdown will continue unless Earth changes its traditional orbit around the sun, in which case we need no longer be concerned about the deficit.

Two Daily News editorials appeared over the weekend which you may not have seen. We warmly agree with the sentiments expressed by the News, and in fact have made some of these points in previous articles.

Does Teach Have to Score?

Saturday's News editorial, "Wrong chemistry lesson" (scroll down to second editorial), is in sync with our article subhead Tuesday, "What Does it Take to Get a Teacher Fired?" The next question should be: what does it take to get an arbitrator fired?

Under the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers, decisions on dismissal of teachers go to third-party arbitration. Since the Solomonic procedure of arbitrators is to cut the baby in half, the most common result of these proceedings is some penalty short of dismissal. This does not solve the problem of an incompetent or immoral teacher or administrator in the school system - it just pushes it off to someone else.

In addition, the union carefully monitors the performance of arbitrators. If they decide once too often for the Department of Education, the union can see to it that they do not get any more cases to arbitrate. Since they are paid to do this work, no cases mean no income. Some of these men and women need the money.

Most of them want it. So they are careful to see that they don't get on the union's bad side. Meanwhile, chancellors rotate in and out of office every two years. In the last generation, I have seen a dozen come and go. Some of them were eager to curry favor with the union while they were in office so they can receive plaques,dinners, speaking invitations at conferences in nice places,, favorable press mention and all the goodies that come with going along with the real power structure. These people talk the talk of reform, but they walk the walk of complicity.

Educrats Caught With Funny Numbers

Sunday's lead editorial, "The fraud of bilingual ed," begins: "Bilingual eaducation in New York City has long been a disaster." The News says: "Now, an even bigger scandal is emerging. For years, the schol system has reported that about 20% of the children in bilingual education scored high enough on standardized tests to be deemed proficient in English." It turns out that 20% is far from the truth. Under new tests, ordered by state education officials, the passing rate fell to below 4%. The News deserves congratulations for revealing these damning statistics.

The presentation of false or misleading data to describe academic achievement is the equivalent of a chief financial officer cooking the books in order to make a company appear profitable when it is in fact a failure. It is an even greater outrage, because financial flim-flam primarily affects the shareholders. False education reporting cheats children out of a chance to learn the language of their country. If it is not already a crime, it should be.

The sight of the first educrat on a perp walk should induce their colleagues into a convulsion of truth telling. Then the children might be taught English for their own good, not kept in chains to save the jobs of a bunch of illiterates who themselves can barely speak the language of the country that is paying them their salaries, benefits, summer vacations and pensions.

Chancellor Klein, you know that bilingual education is a mess. It was this way long before you took over, and you have done what you can to improve it. Go a little further: throw the jokers out, and put the program under someone who can make it transitional, not a perpetual ghetto confining linguistically disadvantaged students and teachers with similar difficulties.

The Money is OK, But Why Do They Get Cars and Drivers?

Two articles on the MTA today are of intermediate value. In the Post, "MTA fare hikes help boost bigwigs' pay," Exclusive, Clement Lisi, p2, is a populist effort to play off riders against management salaries. On the merits of the issue, the total increases are not excessive, but one would have to know whether the particular individuals deserved them. Four of the top ten received no increase at all, and four who received increases were promoted. Only two received raises without promotions. One is Michael Ascher, president of bridges and tunnels (the former Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, anchor of the Robert Moses legacy and cash cow for the MTA). I know him to be competent.

The other is Peter Cannito, president of Metro North, who received a 25 percent raise, up $42,500 to $215,000. I do not know him, but $215,000 is not a fortune to pay a railroad president. The rail lines also have the problem of compression, where unionized employees' salaries increase with every contract, so the supervisors must also get raises, and it goes all the way to the top. The president of the Long Island Rail Road, Jim Dermody, a well-regarded railroader who worked his way up through the ranks, will now get $214,999. Why does he get one dollar less than Metro North? I asked the MTA. When they call back and tell me, I'll let you know.

Will Toll Booth Clerks Go the Way of Buggy Whip Makers?

The second story was more significant. The Daily News reported "600 token clerks facing MetroCut" (good headline), Exclusive, by Pete Donohue, p6. This is "part of a plan to close 49 around-the-clock token booths and all 115 part-time booths next year," the story says. Riders predictably denounce the cuts, and the MTA minimizes their effect.

The great majority of the MTA budget goes for labor costs, and if you want to save money, that is the place to do it. You can't reduce the electricity on the third rail, or eliminate the motormen or conductors who close the doors. You don't want to cut mechanics who keep the trains running, or cleaners who keep the stations bearable.

Who is left? Token booth clerks. And with the increased use of machines to buy tokens, the clerks are becoming technologically obsolete. One proposal is to take them out of their booths and make them customer service agents, as is done in Chicago. This way they could provide a comforting presence, open gates where needed, and assist the disabled. That idea is worth exploring. It is more sensible than keeping them secluded in booths, where many read newspapers and chat on the telephone because there is nothing for them to do a great deal of the time.