Mayor: Deep Agency Budget Cuts Unlikely To Require Layoffs; Unions Worried That $1.5B in Proposed Reductions Will Harm Services
By ARI PAUL and DAVID SIMS
Even as Mayor Bloomberg asked city agencies to make $1.5 billion in budget cuts covering this fiscal year and next to cope with anticipated losses in tax revenues from Wall Street, he said he believed the chopping could be done without employee layoffs.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Can cut deep without layoffs.

Some union officials expressed alarm nonetheless about the impact the potential cutbacks — $516 million in the current fiscal year and $1 billion in the one that begins next July — could have on city services.

Ask DOE for $185M Cut

No agencies are being spared, with the largest targeted cut for this fiscal year — $185.4 million — planned for the Department of Education. The NYPD is being asked to identify $94.7 million in potential savings, the Fire Department $33.8 million, and a combined $92.4 million is sought from agencies responsible for sanitation, correction, health, transportation and social services.

Those reductions represent 2.5 percent of agency budgets; they are being asked to double those cuts in fiscal year 2010.

LILLIAN ROBERTS: Reduce contracting-out.

Despite the extent of the reductions, Mr. Bloomberg Sept. 24 told reporters. "I don't think that the cuts that we have to do to get this budget in balance are of the magnitude where we would have to lay off people." He is also seeking to rescind an ongoing property tax cut of 7 percent, which he says will produce an additional $600 million for the city.

District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts suggested that the city look elsewhere to reduce spending. "We urge a very careful review of those areas of the budget where city services are being contracted out to private companies at great taxpayer expense," she said in a statement. "Most of those services could be performed more economically and efficiently by city workers."

Deliverers and Recipients

Her statement noted, "the 125,000 members of DC 37 not only provide the public services that make this city run well but they are also residents who ... count on those services to maintain the quality of life that has made this city great."

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow WON'T GUT CITY SERVICES: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, flanked by fellow Council Members, says officials 'learned from those mistakes' made in the 1970s when massive layoffs were imposed to deal with a budget crisis.

Harry Nespoli, the new chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, argued that the reductions would have an adverse effect as the city entered a time of crisis. "The quality of life and the vital services provided by the hard-working municipal workforce must be maintained," he said in a statement. "[Their] efforts keep us safe, keep the city clean, educate our children and provide the myriad of other services that make New York City the leading city in the world. Reductions in services are often counterproductive and have serious repercussions."

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten agreed, saying in a statement, "It is imperative that we immunize kids through these tough times and keep cuts away from the classroom. Our children didn't create the current lending crisis, and they shouldn't have to bear the consequences of it." She evoked the memory of previous city budget crises, saying, "We must not repeat the mistakes of the Seventies when the city cut education so deeply that it took our school system decades to recover."

HARRY NESPOLI: 'Service cuts counterproductive.'

Quinn: Learned From Mistakes

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was also mindful of that era, saying, "We are not, no matter how things get, going to go back to the days of the '70s where we laid off police officers and things of that nature, and New Yorkers need to know that the government has certainly learned from those mistakes."

Ms. Quinn had some suggestions for DOE on how to cut its spending. "I think the Department of Education centrally needs to go look at its contract budget and talk about scaling back how much they're paying some of their outside consultants," she said. "We also need to look at longer-term issues, they need to start bidding out their school bus contracts. I believe there's real savings they could get from that."

Mark Page, the Mayor's Budget Director, sent a letter to all city agencies asking them to find ways to make the cuts over the next month. The Council will vote on the Mayor's final proposals in November.