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Powerful United Federation of Teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew was the driving force behind the City Council’s controversial move to give teaching assistants $10,000 raises — on top of a bloated education budget, sources revealed Friday.
Mulgrew pushed council allies, including Speaker Julie Menin, to pass a bill with the pay bump that bypassed union contract negotiations, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.
But many critics worry the end-run around the collective bargaining process could open the floodgates for other budget-busting union asks.
“It’s a bad idea and a bad precedent,” said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a prominent conservative think tank.
“Are we going do this with all unions who can’t get a deal?”
Sources said Mulgrew dropped the ball for years on paraprofessional pay during collective bargaining, leading him and his council cronies to craft a workaround after he faced a stiff leadership challenge last year.
It means more funding for public schools, on top of the whopping $38.6 billion budgeted for the Department of Education, the most of any city agency.
The final bill unanimously approved by the council Thursday also dovetailed with what insiders said was Menin’s desire to score political points against Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom sources believe she plans to challenge in the 2029 Democratic mayoral primary.
“Even though the council is positioning itself as more moderate, it wants to spend more than the mayor,” Gelinas said.
Mamdani supported the raises during his 2025 mayoral campaign, but changed his tune once in office. He raised concerns Thursday that the pay bumps should’ve been negotiated in collective bargaining.
Now, all eyes are on whether Mamdani will sign the bill into law or opt for politically bruising veto fight. He has 30 days to either sign or veto it, or let it go into effect without taking any action.
“The mayor is kind of in a box now,” one source said. “Does he veto and enter into extensive litigation?
“If you don’t veto it you’d better stand back from the flood of unions who are going to be running to the council. If they don’t fight it, who needs a union?”
Paraprofessionals’ skimpy $32,000-a-year base pay became a hot-button issue last year, with Mulgrew rallying on City Hall’s steps to support a bill to raise it by $10,000.
Sources said the bill was introduced to give Mulgrew an opportunity to show he would fight for the teaching assistants as he faced a bitter leadership challenge from his former ally Amy Arundell. Mulgrew this year again didn’t secure the pay bumps as the union won up to $9,500 raises for teachers affected by a delay in New York’s class size mandate.
“It’s not like this problem hasn’t existed all along,” one source said. “If he was actually concerned about paras, he could have figured out a way to get them more pay.”
City Council members renewed their push for the paraprofessional pay bump bill after Mamdani’s administration shot down the raises during negotiations over the city’s behemoth $126 billion budget, sources said.
The ostensible moderate Menin leapt at the chance to effectively put the pressure on socialist Mamdani.
She pulled a similar maneuver when she championed the expansion of a housing voucher program that Mamdani — who had supported it as a candidate — worried would be too costly.
A Democratic insider called the paraprofessionals bill, which was passed unanimously, a “classic City Council move.”
“I wouldn’t say its an ‘outflank to the left,’ but whenever there is a class of city workers that are underrepresented, or under-benefitted, you can expect that the City Council or state legislature would be there to legislate money that for everyone else goes to collective bargaining,” the insider said.
“It’s a good move politically, but it just adds to the headaches.”
A City Hall spokesperson on Friday reiterated Mamdani’s position that the pay raises were best resolved through collective bargaining. The spokesperson contended the council’s bill directly violates the state’s collective bargaining law.
“Our administration is reviewing the final language carefully and working to determine the appropriate next steps,” the spokesperson said.
The pay-raising bill — which carries a $324 million price tag over two years — ultimately will save the city money, given that it spends far more resolving so-called “Carter Cases” in which parents place their children in private schools if public institutions fall short, a City Council spokesperson claimed.
“The city spends $1.5 billion on Carter Cases, which would drastically drop when the 1,600 paraprofessional vacancies are filled once their pay is raised,” the spokesperson said.
“This issue is, however, best resolved through collective bargaining, and we urge the mayor to reach an agreement with the UFT, which would render this legislation moot.”
A spokesperson for the UFT sidestepped the accusations against Mulgrew.
“You need to go back to the sources for a fact check,” the spokesperson said.
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