{"id":325943,"date":"2026-08-20T16:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325943\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:52:10","slug":"nyc-mayor-sues-city-council-over-law-giving-10000-bonuses-to-paraprofessionals-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325943\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor Sues City Council Over Law Giving $10,000 Bonuses to Paraprofessionals \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani sued the New York City Council on Wednesday, hours after a bill giving classroom paraprofessionals $10,000 in bonus pay became law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/a> claims that the council\u2019s approval of bonuses for some of the city\u2019s lowest-paid school employees is unlawful because it bypasses the traditional collective bargaining process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bill, passed unanimously July 16<\/a>, automatically became law Wednesday after Mamdani failed to sign or veto it. If he had vetoed the legislation, it would have gone back to the council and members could have overturned his veto with a two-thirds vote.<\/p>\n

Similar legislation introduced<\/a> last year was backed by the United Federation of Teachers in an effort to address the city\u2019s paraprofessional shortage. After the bill failed to move out of committee, it was reintroduced<\/a> in February by multiple council members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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RelatedBill Giving $10,000 Bonuses to NYC Paraprofessionals Heads to Mayor\u2019s Desk<\/p>\n

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New paraprofessionals earn roughly $33,000<\/a> in the city. The pay scale tops out near $57,000 for paraprofessionals with a bachelor\u2019s degree and 15 years of service. Over the past 20 years, starting salaries<\/a> have increased nearly $12,000 for paraprofessionals, while the highest-paid principals have seen raises totaling $86,000. The bonus pay law will give full-time paraprofessionals four payments of $2,500 throughout the 2026-27 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The union said in a statement<\/a> that the legislation was carefully drafted to ensure it didn\u2019t violate the city\u2019s collective bargaining law<\/a>. Michael Mulgrew, the union\u2019s president, said Wednesday <\/a>that the city\u2019s claim it was suing to protect employees was \u201ca joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city council would not have introduced \u2014 let alone passed \u2014 this bill if it were illegal, and we would not have supported a bill that threatened our collective bargaining rights,\u201d the union said on its website<\/a>. \u201cOnce again, the city has proven that it cares more about protecting pattern bargaining than protecting the most vulnerable children in our city and the paraprofessionals who keep them safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new law allows the council to reauthorize stipends each year as long as New York City Public Schools has a paraprofessional shortage or until the city changes the practice of pattern bargaining<\/a> \u2014 a local policy that lets the salary increases negotiated for one municipal union\u2019s contract set the pattern for all the others.<\/p>\n

The union and council members said pattern bargaining has contributed to low paraprofessional pay. Once an initial bargaining pattern is created, it\u2019s challenging to get the city to grant better terms to another union, according to the United Federation of Teachers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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RelatedAcross the U.S., Unions Are Seeking Big Boosts to Paraprofessional Pay<\/p>\n

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Mamdani\u2019s lawsuit argues that by sidestepping the collective bargaining process, the city council set a \u201cperilous and unlawful precedent with huge fiscal consequences for the Department of Education and the city \u2014 and, by extension, the tax-paying public.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the paraprofessional pay bill is allowed to stand, other public employees will undoubtedly seek their own \u2018stabilization\u2019 payments from the council, also outside of the collective bargaining process, or otherwise use council proposals for such payments as leverage over that process,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

Marie Wausnock is a New York City paraprofessional who co-founded Fix Para Pay, a union caucus that opposes Mulgrew. She said several paraprofessionals oppose the bonuses as a way to bump wages because the money does not count toward pensions and is currently approved only for the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what\u2019s going to happen? I\u2019m sure they will have people who will want to become a para. Because they\u2019ll get an extra $10,000,\u201d she told The 74. \u201cThey\u2019re going to work for a year. They won\u2019t really see what the job is about, and if they won\u2019t have another $10,000 [the following year], they\u2019re leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin said in a Wednesday press release that council members unanimously approved the paraprofessional bonuses and that it\u2019s unacceptable for some employees to receive only a $32,000 salary to support some of the district\u2019s highest-need students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis law is not only the right thing to do, it is also the fiscally responsible thing to do, helping address the staffing shortages that contribute to the city\u2019s $1.5 billion in Carter case costs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

New York City spends more than $1 billion annually on what are called Carter cases<\/a> \u2014 legal claims that allow parents to enroll children with disabilities in private school and seek tuition reimbursement from the district on grounds that it failed to provide an appropriate education, as required by law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple city council members said<\/a> during the July 16 vote that the stipends are necessary as a first step toward solving the district\u2019s paraprofessional shortage. New York City Public Schools was short more than 1,500 support staff last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the answer,\u201d Wausnock said. \u201cThe answer is fixing our longevity [pay increases]. It\u2019s fixing our base pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you use this article in your work?<\/p>\n

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We\u2019d love to hear how The 74\u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Mayor Zohran Mamdani…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,2695,12,56,63,65,64,20546,113567,13038,80553,3555,82],"class_list":["post-325943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-mayor","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-school-support-staff","tag-support-staff","tag-teachers-union","tag-union-lawsuit","tag-unions","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}