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Bloomberg Promises New Budget Will Be "Very Painful"
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 26, 2011
Modified Apr 26, 2011
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NYC Mayor's Office
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 26, 2011
Modified Apr 26, 2011
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Next week, Mayor Bloomberg will have to present the final numbers of his austere $65.6 billion budget that features thousands of layoffs, and he told reporters it will not be pretty. But Bloomberg made the point, "New York City has to balance its budget by law. We will go ahead and do that, you can rest assured. And it will be very painful because we have a lot less money, which means a lot fewer people... What we have to do is decide will it be fewer cops, fewer firefighters, fewer teachers, fewer this, fewer that."
The City Council usually tries to restore funds that get cut, but according to the Post, "one source said that will be much more difficult this year because tax revenues, which had been coming in beyond projections, have flattened since the preliminary budget was issued in February." And City Hall News reports, "This year, some Council members say the austere proposals sketched out in Bloomberg's preliminary budget are making them more nervous than usual." Specifically, many are concerned with Bloomberg's proposed "$90 million in reductions to the ACS budget, which advocates say will hurt subsidies for nearly 17,000 children this year alone, in addition to losing 14,000 child-care slots since 2006."
City Councilman David Greenfield, who told City Hall News he couldn't vote for a budget with those cuts, said, "It's a matter of fairness. It's a matter of equity. It's a matter of morality. This is the line in the sand." Bloomberg's spokesperson says that a lack in federal funds is what is driving the decrease to ACS, claiming that city funds to ACS have actually increased by 20%.
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2011 city budget
ACS
budget
city budget
City Council
mayor bloomberg
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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