New York City’s public schools over two years will lose $724 million in state aid and as many as 2,500 teachers through attrition, because of a labor union conflict over a teacher evaluation system, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday.

The schools lost $250 million of that total earlier this month after the city and United Federation of Teachers failed to agree on a way to evaluate teacher performance.

City schools would lose that same baseline funding amount in the state’s coming fiscal year, which begins April 1, plus another $224 million under the state budget proposed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last week, Bloomberg said at a joint legislative hearing.

State legislators passed a law in 2010 that tied state aid to teacher evaluations. About 99 percent of the state’s school districts have implemented some kind of evaluation plan, Cuomo has said.

Lawmakers began on Monday to review Cuomo’s proposed budget. Bloomberg is scheduled to present his own budget for the city on Tuesday.

Separately, the city’s $22 billion public school system, which is controlled by the mayor, lost $200 million in federal education funding when it missed the deadline.

As a result of the missing funds, the city will lose 700 teachers through attrition this year and could lose another 1,800 in fiscal 2014, Bloomberg said during the televised hearing.

The state used to pay for about half of New York City’s school budget but now pays 39 percent, even as the system has expanded with more students, Bloomberg said.

(Reuters)