<<<<< 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_s
kewed_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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