PATERSON PRESS

Paterson school board members say 700 aides’ jobs may be in jeopardy

Joe Malinconico
Paterson Press

PATERSON — Facing a massive budget gap, school board members say the district is looking at the possibility of cutting about 700 employees who work in instructional assistant and personal aide jobs.

The district then would retain a private company to perform the work currently handled by the aides, a switch that could save Paterson Public Schools more than $10 million per year, board members said.

The proposal came to light during Wednesday night’s Board of Education meeting when the president of the teachers' union, John McEntee Jr., expressed his strong opposition to it.

In response to an inquiry from Paterson Press, district spokesman Paul Brubaker issued the following statement: “Privatization of instructional assistants is nothing more than a rumor. No decisions have been made at all about how to close the budget gap.”

Paterson:Council approves Sayegh's $287M budget

Paterson police:Auditors outline extensive review of department

The district has talked about cutting the aides’ jobs in the past and never did it. But multiple school board members said this year’s impending budget crisis may force the district to enact the measure.

The cuts — if made — would affect aides who work with children in special education as well as instructional assistants in regular classrooms, board members said. The aides’ annual salaries range between $29,000 and $49,000, according to district payroll records.

McEntee asserted that Paterson children are better served by having the aides from the district payroll instead of people hired by a private firm, whom he described as “strangers.” After Wednesday night’s meeting, McEntee issued a lengthy statement about the issue.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” McEntee wrote. “When privatization or outsourcing occurs, there is an incentive for these outside companies to ‘cut corners’ by skimping on the quality of the work performed.

John McEntee Jr., president of the Paterson teachers' union.

“Yes, they may come into districts and promise savings,” the union president said, “but what they don’t say is to keep costs low (and their profits high), these profiteers typically pay lower wages, offer no health benefits and don’t care about professional development.”

Last fall, the district’s business administrator, Richard Matthews, said the Paterson school board faced a gap of more than $60 million in its 2020-21 budget. Since then, the district has not revealed any changes regarding the gap. The school board has scheduled a special meeting on Feb. 26 to discuss the budget.

“Given the budget situation, everything is on the table,” board President Kenneth Simmons said when asked about the possibility of eliminating the aides’ jobs.

Board member Emanuel Capers made a similar statement. “With the huge deficit we’re facing, we have to look at every possible cost savings,” Capers said.

Simmons and Capers both said they would prefer avoiding privatizing the aides’ jobs. “I want to do what’s best for our children,” Simmons said.

Capers said if the district were to eliminate the aides’ jobs, many of them might land work with whatever private company the district hires. Capers said the private firm might provide comparable or even higher salaries, but he said he feared that the workers would get inferior health benefits and lose out on being in the public pension system.

McEntee said in an interview on Thursday morning that the district already has begun shifting some of the aides’ duties to a private company, Insight Solutions, which provides the district with substitute teachers. McEntee said the district gets about 190 aides from Insight.

Email: editor@patersonpress.com