The New York City Council filed its legal response to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s lawsuit challenging the validity of Local Law 129 of 2026. The mayor's suit seeks to prevent the City's paraprofessionals from receiving emergency workforce stabilization payments. In its filing, the Council calls on the Court to decline to hear the Mayor's lawsuit or declare that Local Law 129 is valid and not preempted by state Taylor Law.
The Council unanimously passed Local Law 129 on July 17, sponsored by Council Member Carmen De La Rosa. The law would require the Department of Education to provide a workforce stabilization payment totaling up to $10,000 to each eligible school paraprofessional for work performed during the 2026-2027 school year, prorated by days on payroll and paid in four installments. As of March 2026, there were over 1,000 paraprofessional vacancies. The Council says this crisis has left students with disabilities without legally mandated services, contributing to the $1.5 billion the City most recently allocated towards due process cases. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said the UFT surveyed schools at the start of the school year and found thousands of paraprofessional vacancies.
The Council's filing argues that the current and previous mayoral administrations' failure to address the ongoing paraprofessional workforce crisis necessitated legislative action. The memorandum states the Mayor has not addressed the crisis by bargaining, nor by honoring his campaign promise to provide paras a '$10,000 bonus' via local law. The Council contends Local Law 129 represents a narrow, tailored exercise of its legislative authority allowed by the Taylor Law and Education Law, while fully preserving the collective bargaining process.
What remains unknown is how the Court will rule on the Mayor's preemption argument that the Taylor Law requires terms and conditions of employment to be collectively bargained by the executive branch in all instances. The filing does not specify a timeline for a judicial decision, and the Council's legal response does not indicate whether the administration has pursued available administrative remedies before filing suit.