Per The New York Times [1], the Council and Mayor have agreed on a $59.1B budget for the new fiscal year just ahead of the July 1st deadline. The budget shifts funding away from infrastructure and towards taxpayers and consumers of City services.
During the news conference, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn offered a few of the highlights. The New York City Housing Authority would receive $18 million more than Mr. Bloomberg proposed in May. Libraries would continue to be open six days a week and not five as was originally suggested.
The city’s capital budget would be trimmed by 20 percent. All agencies would absorb across-the-board cuts in operating expenses. And financing for City Council-sponsored programs, now at the heart of a federal investigation, was cut by 38 percent. There would also be less money to pay for security guards at cultural institutions, and a chess program for schools was cut.
A City of this size, complexity and age can get away with cutting capital spending for a year or two; beyond that, due to the age of our infrastructure, deferred maintenance inevitably results in higher costs down the road.
This is, in short, a classic election-year budget. Voters don't see the capital budget in the same way and with the same immediacy as they see their local library branch staying open for an extra day a week.
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