Jerusalem schools to start late Monday, afterschool programs to strike

Jerusalem high schools and middle schools will only begin at 10:00am Monday and kindergarten afternoon programs have been cancelled for the day as teachers protest against absent funding.

The municipality announced the protests Sunday because the 2017 budget has not yet been transferred to the city by the Finance Ministry.

Other municipal services across the city will continue a strike that began Sunday.

The municipality said that if the money is not transferred, it will be forced to lay off staff and the quality of services in the city will fall.

Also on Monday there will be protests around the city, including outside the Finance Ministry beginning at 8:00 a.m. There will also be protesters outside the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The dispute has featured biting public arguments between Jerusalem city and Finance Ministry officials.

Mayor Nir Barkat called on Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to personally intervene to ensure the money is transferred immediately, “to prevent more suffering for the city’s residents.”

https://twitter.com/NirBarkat/status/825760534351978498

Paz Cohen, head of the Jerusalem teachers’ organization, said that “Jerusalem parents and children are the victims in this struggle… Since the beginning of the year, the past five months, money has not been transferred to the afternoon program staff. We have refrained from striking three times already in the hope that the situation will improve,” Cohen said. “Unfortunately the government continues [with its stubbornness] and the residents are paying the price.”

Earlier, the Finance Ministry’s Amir Levi turned to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and asked him to use his authority to appoint an accountant to the city, claiming that it had been failed by its managers. “The city of Jerusalem has turned strikes into a system. I’m sorry that the residents of the city, who pay among the highest municipal taxes in the country, have become hostages to foreign interests. The Finance Ministry recognized the importance of Jerusalem before Barkat came along and will continue to do so after he leaves,” he said.

The municipality responded, “We are sorry that the Finance Ministry uses lying media spin instead of strengthening the city. The challenges of the capital are the challenges of the country,” it said.

“In contradiction to the lies of the Finance Ministry, throughout the entire Barkat era the municipality has never been in deficit and it even earned prizes from the Interior Ministry for the proper use of its finances and its transparent conduct.”

Special education institutions will not be affected by the strike.

Earlier this month, schools around the country went on strike over unpaid salaries.

Last month the education system was also disrupted as many municipalities went on strike over budgetary cuts.

In October, hundreds of teachers demonstrated outside the Education Ministry in Tel Aviv over the failure to pay their full salaries in September.

At that time Education Minister Naftali Bennett vowed that the problem of irregular salary payments, which has been ongoing for 20 years, would be solved during his term as education minister.