New York State educators are warning that proposed cuts in state aid to public schools next year could force more than 14,000 teacher layoffs. Officials of the state's largest teachers' union claim aid cuts will "devastate" education, leading to a "drastic" reduction of programs and "much larger class sizes." But these dire forecasts need to be weighed against a recent growth trend in school staffing. In fact, relative to enrollment, most school districts in New York employed more professional staff last year than they did at the start of the decade. Between 2000-01 and 2008-09, New York schools added 14,746 teachers and 8,655 non-teaching professionals such as administrators, guidance counselors, nurses, psychologists and social workers, according to State Education Department (SED) data. During the same period, statewide enrollment dropped by 121,280 pupils. This bulletin discusses what accounts for the staff growth and the costliness of smaller class sizes. (Contains 8 endnotes.) [This bulletin was produced by the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.]