New York school system fires more Americans to pay for high-priced H-1Bs

Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009 2:08 AM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 2055 -- 9/16/2009 >>>>>

I reported in August that the New York school system was replacing its
computer/IT department with over-priced H-1B visa holders, ostensibly to cut
labor costs. These "consultants" bill New York at the rate of $250,000 a year
so it's not clear how the schools save money.

Since the last report, things haven't gotten any better. Now that the
computer/IT department has been gutted, hundreds of low-paid school aides are
scheduled for job termination so that a few more expensive "consultants" can
be hired. The "consultants" work for a company called "Future Technology
Associates" (FTA), which seems to be nothing more than a post office box in
Florida and a few H-1Bs.

Most of the school aides who will lose their jobs are part timers who perform
functions like hallway and cafeteria duty, transporting sick children, and
filling out paperwork for the school lunch program. They will be put on the
sacrificial altar even though they are paid an average of $17,500 a year.

To read more about this story, read my previous commentary here:

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/08/05/outsourcing-new-york-schools-hired-future-technology-associates/
OR
http://tiny.cc/NYoutsourcing
"Outsourcing: New York Schools Hired 'Future Technology Associates'", Posted
By Rob Sanchez On 5 August 2009

or go to the newsletter archive and look for this entry:

2009-08-05 Outsourcing_ New York schools hired Future Technology Associates

The Vdare version should be your first choice to read although the newsletter
might have links to a few more of the older stories.

This is just another sad example illustrating how citizens who choose to be
apathetic and/or ignorant encourage those who want to destroy American jobs. I
contend that this sordid example of bid rigging and cronyism could have been
thwarted if enough people in New York would have raised bloody hell about what
was going on. Instead it seems that the citizens of that state chose to allow
Chancellor Joel Klein to continue his misdeeds.

It's interesting to note that the New York Times has chosen to ignore this
story but fortunately The New York Daily News has been covering the
shenanigans of Joel Klein for well over a year. Without the investigative
reporting of the New York Daily News we would have never known what is taking
place.

NOTE: I constantly get complaints that long links are broken up in their
emails. Well folks, that's just the way ascii emails work and I'm not going to
go into the technical details why, or give the many reasons I'm not going to
burden you with HTML. I provided a short link but don't think I am going to do
that for every link in every newsletter. Believe it or not I do have a life!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/16/2009-09-16_school_aide_cuts_skewed_so_poor_suffer.html

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to lay off low-paid school aides, add high-
priced consultants

Juan Gonzalez - News

Wednesday, September 16th 2009, 4:00 AM
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein (c.) is planning to terminate hundreds of low-
paid school aides in October.
Smith, Bryan, Freelance NYDN
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein (c.) is planning to terminate hundreds of low-
paid school aides in October.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein will lay off hundreds of low-paid school aides
next month - mostly in the city's poorest school districts - while ramping up
his army of high-priced computer consultants.

On Monday, the city's education policy board approved a new four-year, $54
million computer contract with Future Technology Associates.

Before Monday, Florida-based FTA had a no-bid contract to supply 63
consultants to the Department of Education at an average annual cost of
$250,000 apiece.

Under the new contract, FTA will supply up to 10 additional consultants this
year at the same $250,000 average price tag.

Amazingly, the DOE issued pink slips in the past few days to 14 of its
computer department employees. Average pay for those workers is a mere
$65,000.

"Our workers are capable of doing those FTA jobs, so why is the city laying
them off and paying three or four times more for outside consultants?" said
one leader of District Council 37, the city employees union.

Even more startling is the DOE's plan to slash nearly 600 school aides by mid-
October. The part-time aides - who typically perform hallway and cafeteria
duty, transport sick children and do paperwork for the school lunch program -
are paid an average of $17,500 a year, including fringe benefits.

The layoffs are supposed to be part of an across-the-board 5%budget cut for
all schools. An analysis of the layoffs done by DC37 reveals a
disproportionate impact on the city's poorest districts.

In District 6 in Washington Heights, 17% of the aides (45 of 263) received
layoff notices, while in Staten Island's District 31, less than 1% (one of
271) did.

Likewise, Districts 1, 2, and 3 - which cover lower Manhattan, the upper East
Side and the upper West Side - are losing 1% of their aides (four of 286),
while District4 in East Harlem faces an astonishing cut of 22% (27 of 118).

In Brooklyn, District 15 in upscale Park Slope and Gowanus will lose 6% of its
aides, while District 23 in Brownsville will lose 19%.

School officials could not confirm the union's numbers. They said spending
details were left to local principals.

"All schools saw an equal percentage of their budgets cut," said Klein
spokeswoman Melody Meyer.

"Each school determined how they would reduce spending," Meyer said, and the
central office "did not dictate how schools would meet the cuts."

As for FTA, the Daily News previously reported 19 of the firm's employees are
working with H-1B immigrant visas. FTA told the U.S. Labor Department it was
paying those workers an average of $65,000 - about the same as city computer
workers.

FTA's chief executive, Tamer Sevintuna, has declined to talk about his
contract.

DOE sources said the agency was poised in the summer to approve a much larger
$95 million five-year deal with the firm. School officials said then they were
still negotiating the final number.

The agency requested bids for the new contract in January. Officials
acknowledged last week FTA was the only bidder. They ended up reducing the
contract to four years, and the cost to $54 million.

Why, you might ask, would no other consulting company in America bid on such a
large computer contract?

School officials told the education policy panel Monday that other firms were
"not interested in taking on the risk and costs" of a contract that was
"largely the continuation of development work done over the past two years by
another vendor."

Sources in the agency tell a different story. They say the bid specifications
were geared from the start to discourage any other firm from competing with
FTA.

Now that the contract has been approved, the DOE will have even more $250,000-
a-year consultants. Klein will move forward with his school aide layoffs and
claim with a straight face that he's cutting costs.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

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