The City Council will vote this week on a bill to boost underpaid para-professionals in the city school system with a $10,000 payment that’s separate from their negotiated salary – even though it sparked concerns from the mayor’s office over whether it’s legal.
The bill, which was re-introduced in February by Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, would approve a “workforce stabilization payment” of $10,000 to thousands of Department of Education paraprofessionals until they reach a contract with a raise that’s greater or equal to that sum. The funds would be doled out over four payments.
The starting pay for paras is around $34,000, and rises to a top rate of more than $56,000 within 15 years, according to the United Federation of Teachers, which represents the workers.
The UFT argues that the low pay makes it hard to recruit the crucial staffers, and that a current paraprofessional vacancy of around 1,600 hurts students with disabilities the most.
But the annual cash infusion could also run afoul of state labor rules, known as the Taylor Law, which says raises and other payments must be negotiated through collective bargaining.
Daniel Pollak, the first deputy commissioner for the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations, testified during a March hearing that, while the administration supports the bill, they had concerns.
“We have significant legal, practical, and fairness concerns with an approach that would provide a substantial pay increase for these employees through local legislation,” he said.
The United Federation of Teachers held a paraprofessional festival, March 7, 2026. Credit: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
Mayor Zohran Mamdani supported an earlier version of the bill which proposed the same $10,000 bonus, calling it “critically important.”
“I supported it in the primary and I continue to support it today,” he told The City Reporter before he was elected in the fall. “And the reason I do is that we have an increasing number of vacancies of paraprofessional positions within New York City. Part of it is because we are paying people a wage they cannot afford to live in New York City.”
He dialed back that support as mayor in an interview with The City Reporter in April.
“I think that it’s still something that’s critically important, that those who work for the city can afford to live in the city, I also think we want to look at the process by which we do this to ensure that it’s sustainable and that it’s tenable,” he said. His spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Speaker Julie Menin said the payment is needed to boost recruitment and retention for a critical job, and doesn’t violate current labor rules.
“I pushed to address this during the budget process, but the administration failed to make this workforce a priority both in its budget and at the bargaining table,” she said in a statement.
“We can’t sit idly by as our public schools suffer from a workforce retention crisis of paraprofessionals who earn just $32,000 a year,” she said, noting that the city pays more than $1 billion on settlements over students who haven’t received required services — and more paras could help stop that.
“Investing in the workforce that helps deliver mandated services, strengthens school stability, and improves student outcomes is one of the smartest investments we can make,” she said.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew joined Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani outside I.S. 5 in Elmhurst, Queens on the first day of school, Sept. 4, 2025. Credit: Katie Honan/THE CITY
UFT President Michael Mulgrew said the payment is to help rectify an emergency situation, not skirt labor laws.
“We’re very protective of the Taylor Law, which is why we made this part of a program and not collective bargaining,” he told The City Reporter.
He thanked the City Council for its work but said the mayor hadn’t done enough to rectify the issue.
“The mayor, throughout his entire campaign and since he’s been in office, has said he wants to fix this problem,” Mulgrew said.
Some paraprofessionals, though, feel the payment isn’t enough and doesn’t address longstanding issues that they say have been ignored by the union.
Marie Wausnock is a paraprofessional on Staten Island who also co-founded Fix Para Pay, a union caucus slate that opposes Mulgrew. Some paras leave for other city jobs that require less training and have better pay, she said.
“How do you give respectable pensions and dignity to paras when you want to give them non-pensionable money?” she said. “Paras are so underpaid. We get crumbs every time.”
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