By LISA FLEISHER And MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL
After years of swelling class sizes, the number of New York City schoolteachers will increase next year for the first time since 2008, city officials said.
The nearly $70 billion budget Mayor Michael Bloomberg will introduce on Thursday keeps the number of general education teachers flat, while the number of special education teachers will rise, officials said. State aid to the city will climb slightly this year after steep cuts last year.
Officials couldn't confirm the exact increase in teachers.
The city has had a partial hiring freeze, but hires teachers in certain subjects to replace those who quit or retire. About 5,000 of the city's nearly 75,000 teachers left the system last year, but more than 3,000 were hired to fill empty spots, according to the Department of Education.
Class sizes in many grades have been rising for about five years, with the biggest impact felt by the youngest students. This year, elementary-school class sizes rose 3% to an average of 24.4 students per class.
"If it's true, that will be an important step forward," said Leonie Haimson, an active parent who runs Class Size Matters.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said the "good news" could affect class sizes, but said enrollment was also expected to increase, so it was too soon to tell.
All told, the city spends about $24 billion on the school system, including more than $8 billion from the state and nearly $2 billion from Washington.
In February, when Mr. Bloomberg issued his preliminary budget proposal, the Department of Education was expected to lose about 2,570 teachers through attrition because the funds were not in place to hire enough replacements. City Council members complained, and in March, schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said he expected the city to be able to make up for the attrition when the final budget numbers came out.
Other details of the mayor's budget came out on Wednesday. Since the preliminary budget proposal in February, a $495 million gap opened up because of an increase in city agency expenses and falling expectations for revenue. The mayor will propose on Thursday to fill that gap primarily with $466 million the city received from Science Applications International Corp. as part of a recent legal settlement, administration officials said.
Write to Lisa Fleisher at lisa.fleisher@wsj.com and Michael Howard Saul at michael.saul@wsj.com
