Local 237 Head: Not City's Responsibility To Close HA Deficit
By RICHARD STEIER

Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, a prominent advocate for additional funding for the Housing Authority, last week refrained from joining the call for the Bloomberg administration to forgive the payments it receives from the HA to reduce its $170-million budget gap.

GREGORY FLOYD: A Federal obligation, not city's.

A New York Times article July 7 noted that the agency that oversees public housing developments where 406,000 residents live pays the city $200 million to provide basic services from police to sanitation pick-up and senior citizen facilities. It stated that while the HA is charged about $65 million a year to cover the cost of an NYPD bureau devoted to housing patrols, no charge is imposed upon the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for services provided by the Transit Police Bureau.

'A Financial Drain'

Some advocates argued that by reducing or completely forgiving those obligations, the Bloomberg administration could allow the HA to balance its budget without resorting to cuts in services to residents of the 343 housing developments. The Times quoted City Council Member Rosie Mendez, who chairs that body's Public Housing Subcommittee, calling the payments to the city "a financial drain to the Housing Authority."

BARRY FEINSTEIN: Cuts began with Bush the Elder.

Mr. Floyd, who represents 8,000 HA workers and organized a rally at City Hall Park in May against service cutbacks, said he did not believe the onus should be placed on the Mayor, calling it "primarily a Federal situation." The Bush Administration has cut the budget for public housing by hundreds of millions of dollars over the past seven years, which is a major factor in the current HA problems.

"We do need help from the city, but I understand the city's position," Mr. Floyd said during a July 8 phone interview. "If the city gave the Housing Authority $170 million, that would make it easy for the Federal Government to just walk away and say it's the city's responsibility now. The city cannot sustain a Federal housing program that was built by the Federal Government and should be maintained by the Federal Government."

Rallying Public Support

Mr. Floyd said his union would air ads on WCBS radio and during the local broadcast of the baseball All-Star Game July 15 asking listeners to call their representatives in Congress to urge restoration of Federal funding for public housing. He added, "We're supporting Charles Schumer's bill to Federalize all the housing developments."

He was referring to a measure introduced by Senator Schumer - with a companion bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez - that would amend the 1937 U.S. Housing Act to ensure that public housing developments received adequate funding for their operation.

One of Mr. Floyd's predecessors as Local 237 president, Barry Feinstein, said underfunding by the Federal Government had been a problem since President Reagan left office, noting that his Secretary of Housing, former Congressman Jack Kemp, had been a strong champion of public housing.

"Things started to go downhill with the first President Bush, and there wasn't really that much improvement under Clinton," Mr. Feinstein said. "They have been starving Housing Authorities for years and made it very difficult for them to provide services."

He offered another reason why a union leader should not want the city too involved in funding the HA, saying, "I didn't want the City of New York dictating to the Housing Authority how they would handle labor negotiations with me."

In 1985, Mr. Feinstein recalled, then-Mayor Ed Koch told the heads of the HA at the time, Chairman Joseph Christian and General Manager John Simon, not to negotiate with Local 237 until he had reached a deal with that union or another one on behalf of municipal employees. They did not heed his warning, however, agreeing to go to arbitration with Local 237, and Mr. Feinstein noted, "We wound up getting a very good deal that became the model for all the city settlements."

Mr. Koch exacted a measure of revenge by blocking Mr. Simon's reappointment, but Mr. Feinstein countered by hiring the deposed HA chief of operations - whom he called "the best housing guy in the country" - as a senior adviser.