Mayor Bloomberg's bad-news budget tries to plug a $4 billion hole with less than $2 billion worth of spending cuts and new sales taxes - and counts on unions,
Albany and the federal govermment to come up with the rest.
He proposed a $43.4 billion budget Friday for the fiscal year starting July 1, up $123 million from the year before - one that slices deep into the pockets of city residents and the ranks of city workers.
"Are we going to go through some difficult times? I don't think there's any question about that. But we have a plan to balance our budget," Bloomberg said. "It is serious, but I think it is manageable."
The new cuts and taxes come on top of $1 billion in cuts and $1.5 billion in tax hikes he already pushed through, as administration economists predict the national economy and
Wall Street will continue to pummel the city's revenues.
The mayor's budget counts on city workers paying 10% toward the cost of their health benefits, raising $350 million, as well as $200 million more from reining in health costs.
While municipal unions have begun discussions with Bloomberg's labor team, it is unclear whether any such agreement can be reached.
Bloomberg also wants to cut services: 30 ambulance tours, one firefighter from each of 64 engine companies, homeless prevention and child care.
He wants to raise taxes and fees: charging 5 cents per plastic bag to raise $84 million, raising parking meter rates, issuing more fines to unsanitary restaurants, repealing the sales tax exemption on clothes and raising the sales tax another 1/4 of a percent.
And he wants to cut more jobs: 1,000 cops, 1,440 school employees, 167 seasonal Parks Department aides, 549 child welfare workers, and more than 14,000 teachers and classroom employees.
His plan calls for 22,919 fewer city jobs, of which only 7,686 would come from attrition. The other 15,233 employees would be simply laid off - including 13,930 Education Department employees.
"When you talk about reducing city expenditures, you are really talking about reducing headcount," Bloomberg said. "You can only get so much blood out of a stone."
In a bit of brinksmanship, Bloomberg laid the blame for those 14,000 teacher layoffs on
Gov. Paterson's proposed budget, which cuts $771 million from city school spending.
While Bloomberg's budget counts on more than $1 billion in new
Medicaid money from the federal stimulus bill, it does not count on more than $1 billion included for education.
Administration officials say they left that figure out because it will be routed through Albany, which may siphon some of the cash for itself.
Bloomberg's budget assumes that property tax revenues will rise 7.2%, as tax rates catch up with property values that have shot higher in recent years.
But taxes that depend on the economy - like income, sales and real estate transfer - are expected to fall 13.2%.
"Nobody prepared for the severity of the downturn that we have been experiencing," Bloomberg said.
"Nobody's ever seen a boom like this and nobody's ever seen a decline like this."
There is no easy relief in sight, either: Bloomberg's forecasters expect jobs, wages and taxes will keep falling this year and won't bottom out until sometime in 2010.
Almost 300,000 New Yorkers will have lost their jobs by the time the market bottoms out in mid-2010, down from the peak of 3,777,000 employed last fall.
That means a loss of $33 billion in wages this year and another $6 billion next year.
An estimated 46,000 of those jobs will come from Wall Street, which traditionally pays the fat salaries and bonuses that drive
New York's economy - and its municipal budget.
http://www.nydailynews.co...ts_grim_economic_pic.html
damn shame
