Bloomberg The Negotiator

A looming election, more instructional time and now it emerges why things went relatively smoothly during the last teachers’ contract negotiations:

The city shouldn’t have to pay unassigned teachers indefinitely — a side effect of the 2005 teachers’ contract that will cost taxpayers a projected $81 million by June, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

Bloomberg’s message came in response to a study warning that the pool of nearly 700 teachers who’d been cut from schools — but are paid full salary and benefits to serve as substitutes – would grow indefinitely.

The report, by the nonprofit The New Teacher Project, called for putting teachers on unpaid leave after they’d spent a year in the pool known as the Absent Teacher Reserve.

“We are spending tens of millions of dollars, which we are struggling to come up with, and the taxpayer [money] would be better spent on the classroom [than] on supporting these teachers,” said Bloomberg.

“There was an outside study that said we should not pay them after a while — that the money could be better used.”

An education official denied a report there’d be a move to reopen contract negotiations to fix the problem, though “we may pursue it separately.” The official didn’t elaborate.