Quinn Slices Council Budget at City's Rate

By ARI PAUL

The City Council March 12 voted to reduce its spending in line with budget cuts for city agencies, delivering on a promise Council Speaker Christine Quinn made in her State of the City address last month.

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane 'LEAD LITERALLY BY EXAMPLE': City Council Speaker Christine Quinn addressed reporters March 12 before the Council reduced its own budget by 4.3 percent, the same percentage cut most city agencies will suffer. In total, the cut amounts to a $2.3-million reduction, the Speaker said.

"Presently city agencies are proposed to get a 4.3-percent cut," Speaker Quinn said before the vote. "The budget we are passing today reflects a $2.3-million reduction to the City Council's operating budget, which is a 4.3-percent cut to our budget."

No Layoffs Planned

Speaker Quinn said that $1.1 million of the cuts would affect personnel in the Council's central operation, though she added that there would be no layoffs as a result of the cuts and that the bulk of them would take place through attrition. She added that this did not amount to a hiring freeze.

"We're saying that if we have to look agencies in the eye and tell Nurses and Teachers and Social Workers that they have to do more with less, we to the penny will do more with less and lead literally by example," she said. "Now we don't know exactly what the budget cuts will be for city agencies come June, so if we have to make deeper cuts come June to stay on track with those that city agencies are going to absorb, we are prepared to do that."

The Speaker vowed that whatever the final budget cuts to the Council might be, they would not adversely affect Council Members' operating budgets to serve their constituencies.

"There's not a 4.3-percent cut to Robert Jackson's district office," she said, gesturing to the upper Manhattan Councilman. "None of it comes from the individual Council district offices."