Budget Restores Library Funds, Bolsters Pre-K; Cement Plans to Add 1,200 Cops, Cover Retirees' Health

Budget Restores Library Funds, Bolsters Pre-K;
Cement Plans to Add 1,200 Cops, Cover Retirees' Health

By RICHARD STEIER

The final negotiations between Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council that led to a $52.9-billion spending plan for the coming year produced money for 2,000 new all-day pre-kindergarten slots and restoration of funding for five-day library service in a way that could end its being jeopardized in future years.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow BUDGET 'DANCE' ENDS WITH A KISS: Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn had no trouble enjoying the moment after a budget process in which they restored funding in some agencies, found enough money to create 2,000 all-day pre-kindergarten seats, and concluded the deal by exchanging kisses and praise. Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and her colleagues made smaller but significant additions as part of $233 million in spending above what Mr. Bloomberg proposed in his Executive Budget. They will increase the frequency of trash collection, create "child advocacy centers" where police, attorneys and social workers would interview children whom they suspected had been abused, and provide more money to purchase school supplies.

School Building Plan Key

Even as she praised Ms. Quinn and the Council for having "acquitted themselves very well in her first budget negotiation [as Speaker]," United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the biggest item to emerge from the Council's involvement in the process came from Albany: the $6.5 billion in capital construction funds that will eventually produce 6,600 new classroom seats to reduce overcrowding.

"They were able to get the biggest capital plan ever from Albany," Ms. Weingarten said, a process that gained much of its momentum from Mr. Bloomberg's threat earlier this year to support Democratic challengers to some Republican State Senators at a time when his party is clinging to a slender majority in that body.

"All-day universal pre-k is something we know is absolutely needed, so it was great that Quinn and the Council got their foot in the door on this," said Ms. Weingarten, who is also chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group of city-employee unions. "It was very clever on their part to create consensus on the items they wanted to put back in the budget."

Libraries As Hostages

Among those was $40 million to provide five-day library service, which was accompanied by an important change from the past. For decades, even in the kind of fiscal good times the city is currently experiencing, Mayors have cut money from the libraries. More often than not, such cuts were designed to give the Council something to restore to the final budget rather than having it add on other items the Mayors thought were unnecessary, but the occasional year when the cuts were actually implemented made each threatened reduction a source of anxiety for library workers and their unions.

In an attempt to end what Speaker Quinn termed "the budget dance," the Council got the Mayor's assurance that for the remainder of his term he would "baseline" that $40 million so it was part of the core budget, with no need for Council Members to charge to the rescue.

Lynn Taylor, who as president of Local 1930 of District Council 37 represents employees of the New York Public Library, said she was "thrilled" because it was one of the few encouraging signs from City Hall at a time when DC 37 members are not getting what she considers a decent wage offer.

'Not Such a Big Deal'

Ms. Taylor added that her reaction might be the product of artificially lowered expectations, however. "Everyone I've spoken with was pleased and relieved," she said of her rank and file at the NYPL, which will receive roughly half the restored funding (the rest goes to the Brooklyn and Queens library systems.) "But I must say that in a time of $3-to $5-billion surpluses, restoring past cuts is not a great move forward."

The wide range in the budget surplus pivots on whether a portion of that surplus that has already been devoted to creating a Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund is included. Mr. Bloomberg proposed the fund at the end of January, with $1 billion of that surplus to be used in each of two consecutive fiscal years to guarantee benefits at a time when health costs are soaring. As part of the new budget agreement, the Mayor noted during the June 27 press conference announcing it on the steps of City Hall, the Council had consented to the second-year funding.

Several of the initiatives he and Ms. Quinn touted had been agreed to nearly two months earlier, foremost among them funding to hire 1,200 new cops, with 400 of them made available for patrol duty by civilianizing desk jobs that had been handled by uniformed officers. Mr. Bloomberg and the Council Speaker had also at the time decided to allocate money to supply improved protective vests to the roughly 18,000 cops who do not already have that model.

'Good Times Won't Last'

Mr. Bloomberg called it "a city budget that is both realistic and responsible. I think we've come up with the monies we need to take this city forward and help those in need, and also be cognizant that the good times aren't going to be there forever."

He noted that the city faced the prospect of rising fuel costs and added expenses from labor settlements, and that this would be true regardless of whether tax revenues stayed as strong as they presently are. For that reason, the Mayor said, he was determined to "not ratchet up expenses so that when the surplus isn't there, we're in big trouble."

Ms. Quinn sounded like a convert to the principles of the Mayor who was a billionaire businessman before capturing City Hall, saying, "I do think we are sending a clear message that we are acting as the steward of taxpayer dollars in dealing with possible future budget problems."

Ms. Weingarten, not surprisingly, argued that "when you have big surpluses like this, they should be used for big solutions." One area in which she was satisfied, she said, was the devotion of the $2 billion - a big share of which came from improved pension system earnings that allowed the city to defer scheduled contributions to those systems - to the retiree health fund. She also contended, though, that she'd like to see a portion of the excess devoted to collective-bargaining settlements more generous than the Mayor has tendered so far.

Waiting on CFE Funds

The UFT leader acknowledged, though, that one "big-ticket item" that was missing from the budget - the hiring of enough additional Teachers to allow for a significant reduction in class size - would have to await a final determination of the state's obligation to increase funding for the city public schools under the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling.

Where Ms. Weingarten maintained that "the city is in the best [fiscal] shape it's been in a long time," Mr. Bloomberg suggested this was precisely because of prudent spending policies. Those who say he is being unduly alarmed by projected budget deficits of $3 billion or more a year in the three years beyond the new spending plan because the city has balanced its budget despite bigger deficits in recent years, Mr. Bloomberg said, are forgetting some of the pain inherent in that balancing act.

On one occasion, he pointed out, it required state assumption of a large-scale city debt; on another, he and the Council were forced to raise property taxes by more than 18 percent, and several thousand city employees were laid off.