Mayor's 7% Solution

The city budget news got grimmer last week when agency heads were directed to prepare an additional 7-percent trim in their spending for the fiscal year that starts next July.

Coming on top of previous 7.5-percent cuts that are supposed to be implemented in two phases over the coming 18 months, that reduction would, as one union consultant noted, move past whatever fat might still exist in agencies and slice deep into bone.

Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta said it would be difficult to meet that target without making layoffs. Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association President Harry Nespoli, who also chairs the Municipal Labor Committee, indicated Mr. Scoppetta might be understating it, and warned of the consequences if there were layoffs of the magnitude that were imposed in the mid-1970s.

Mayor Bloomberg on more than one occasion has made clear that he regarded those cuts of three decades ago as a major mistake because they had such a drastic impact on city services and neighborhoods. His understanding of how that ultimately made New York City a less-attractive place to live and work figures to be a key element in limiting the cuts this time to avoid a repeat.

But it's also true that necessary cuts made quickly can minimize the need for large ones at a later date. And the Mayor may figure that the extent to which the new proposed cuts would affect life here if implemented may be what he needs to persuade the City Council to impose a real-estate tax hike that, coincidentally or not, he has also set at 7 percent.

What is abundantly clear is that a surge in tax collections from Wall Street and the real-estate industry — which have headed off budget problems more than once in the past — will not materialize this time.