New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday sued the City Council to block its new bill that will give teacher aides a one-time $10,000 payment that he warns could set a dangerous precedent.

The Council passed the bill last month with a veto-proof majority, and it lapsed into law Wednesday without the mayor's veto, which council members would likely have overridden, according to the City Reporter.

The lawsuit argued that the bill overstepped the council's authority and “set a perilous and unlawful precedent with huge fiscal consequences" for the city's Education Department, the city  at large "and, by extension, the tax-paying public."

“If the Paraprofessional Pay Bill is allowed to stand, other public employees will undoubtedly seek their own ‘stabilization’ payments from the Council," the suit argues. "Outside the collective bargaining process, or otherwise use Council proposals for such payments as leverage over that process."

The mayor has claimed that the city law also violates the "Taylor Law," which covers most public employees in New York and gives them the right to organize and bargain for wage increases and other benefits.  

“We will not allow the political process to replace the collective bargaining table,” Mamdani's spokesman Matt Rauschenbach said in a statement.

The $10,000 payments would go to paraprofessionals, who are teacher aides who work with students with disabilities and special needs. Paraprofessionals in the city are paid $33,000 a year to start and can make more than $56,000 in 15 years, according to the United Federation of Teachers. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.