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Special Ed Aides Go Unpaid for Months

Some teacher aides who are paid by the New York City Department of Education say their paychecks have been frozen for months. UPDATE: Despite the city saying that they will be paid within a week back on January 18th, Crown Heights based providers STILL have not been paid.

The I-Team has learned a group of educators working under the city’s Special Education Teacher Support Service program, or SETSS, have not been paid for hours they billed as far back as September.

“I definitely feel extremely taken advantage of, and I feel I’m going through a difficult time financially for no reason,” said Deena Rosenbluth, who has worked as a special education aide for eight years.

Rosenbluth teaches algebra at a private religious school in Brooklyn, but the city is financially responsible for the education sessions she spends with special needs students. Under state and federal law, even private school students are entitled to public funds associated with special education services.

The Department of Education did not immediately explain why paychecks were delayed.

The DOE also declined to quantify how many special education teacher aides have been affected. Spokesman Marcus Liem said in a statement that the agency is “strictly applying existing policies and controls to ensure that billings are appropriate.

“The DOE works to maintain a process by which payments are made to SETTS providers within six weeks of receipt of all proper documentation,” he said. Liem added that there are occasional delays in payments when additional documentation is needed, but the DOE is working to ensure that aides receive proper payment and that “any delayed invoices are prioritized.”

Thus far, Deena Rosenbluth has gone without her SETSS paycheck for four and a half months.

After the I-Team asked, Liem said Rosenbluth’s invoices would be processed in a matter of days. Still, she is concerned many of her fellow educators may have to wait longer.

“Two of my colleagues told me they had to borrow money to pay their mortgages. The next one told me she is afraid her electricity is about to be shut off.”

During a phone call with the New York City Comptroller’s Office Community Action Center, Rosenbluth said she was told as many as 1,400 special education aides may have been inconvenienced by delayed paychecks.

The Department of Education has not confirmed that number.

Malky Berkowitz, a reading specialist who works as a special education aide, said the financial burden of going without pay for months has been enormous.

“Most people I know have had to borrow money,” Berkowitz said. “It is our main income.”

CHI UPDATE: Despite the city saying that they will be paid within a week back on January 18th, Crown Heights based providers STILL have not been paid.

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11 Comments

  • oh my

    i always had this feeling that the city wont be able to keep up with this. they get a pretty good pay per hour. ppl will get a education pay 15k or so then get jobs to who ever can convince the bored ed ed they need it. so its in some ways (not to all kids) like a baby siting service and it will come to a dead lock and all the educators will see there time and money wasted. i hope am worng

  • Outrageous!

    I know that many of teachers are paying interest on their CC’s because they aren’t getting paid!

  • serel chana maness

    awhile this is painful,tell them to check there mezuzahs and make sure it’s on the right place on the doors,it needs to be to be what the code of jewish says,ask a rov,measured a third from the top,l can see,many people do not have them in the right place,then see if the teachers get paid

    • Milhouse

      It does not need to be a third from the top; it can be anywhere in the top third. And if the doorway is very tall, so the top third is too high, it can even be lower.

  • Moshe

    I haven’t been paid since September. We have had to borrow money to pay for everything since then, including food shopping. The situation is really unbearable. We have gone down to speak to them twice a week for the past month or so. Each time they tell us we are being taken care of.
    This week we have finally seen that money has been posted to us and we will receive it within two weeks.
    However this is only payment for September and October, and not even enough to pay back our loans.

  • anon

    why do you continue to go to work? did the city get a heter from doing what’s right? ask your mayor…he’s saving a bundle on cutting corners…..

    I really don’t know why you reward bad behavior. They don’t pay you, you go to work anyway. They win, you lose…..makes perfect sense to me…Come on….at some point you have to make a stand. Who is going to pay your mortgages? Your credit cards? Rent? Loans? Not Bloomberg……and apparently not the school

  • VERY BAD USE OF FUNDS

    Put in NEW busstops. Put up bicycle rails on Kingston so NOBODY can chain their bicycle there. These two things must cost a fortune alone – when our boys and girls are not getting paid!! BAD choosing of how to spend the funds. Disgraceful

  • Aide to Council Member Darlene Mealy-District 41

    Dear P-3 and Seit providers,

    As an aid to one of three Crown Heights City Council Members I have been helping some of your colleagues process their payments. By now you probably know that you need to be registered in the PETS system and after that you you are supposed to get a login to to the SEISS.
    If you have difficulty with these two steps, you can call the office of your Council Member. You can find out who your Council Member is by going to http://www.nyc.council.gov and click on to ‘find my Council Member. Ask for a Constituent Service person in the office or the Education person and they will help expedite your problem.