By Anemona Hartocollis

Gov. David A. Paterson provided the second cash infusion in a week Sunday to St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan in Greenwich Village, but said concessions from unions and physicians would be needed to keep the hospital open.

The governor said Sunday that after “hours of intensive discussions and calls between all parties” the state had agreed to put up $3 million and creditors another $3 million to keep the hospital going temporarily.

It was not clear how long the cash would last, and Mr. Paterson challenged other stakeholders to help as well.

The 160-year-old hospital is $700 million in debt and has stopped accepting new outpatients to its well-known H.I.V. and community health programs because it may be forced to close.

The governor said in a statement that saving St. Vincent’s would require “shared sacrifice,” adding: “We believe this assistance, if combined with assistance from the sponsors, concessions from the unions, management and physicians, cost-cutting actions and aggressive cash management will allow St. Vincent’s Medical Center the time needed to develop short-term and long-term plans for the future.”

The loan came on the heels of an $8 million loan from the state and the hospital’s main creditors, GE Capital and TD Bank, that was announced last Tuesday. The first loan was used for payroll and supplies and was exhausted almost immediately, in part because vendors are now demanding cash in advance or on delivery, hospital officials said.

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, state and federal elected officials, and union leaders have become part of a group working with the governor and the state health department to save the hospital.

But so far, neither the city, the federal government nor the unions have proposed to contribute to the state’s efforts to keep the hospital going until a more permanent solution can be found. A spokeswoman for the hospital workers’ union, Local 1199 of the S.E.I.U., declined to comment Sunday evening.

As a political matter, wage concessions are sometimes more damaging to unions than layoffs, because laid-off workers do not vote in union elections while those whose salaries have been cut do.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has taken a neutral, almost philosophical approach to the hospital’s plight. On Friday, he said in his weekly radio program that he doubted the hospital could stay open longer than six months, but he did not offer any help.

“People want to keep it open; that would be great if you could find a way to do it,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I will say I find it hard to see how you can do that. You might be able to get it through another six months or something. The governor’s giving them a loan to pay their employees for another month, but unless you can really come up with a business model that works, which is difficult in the best of times for the best of hospitals, it’s a really tough proposition to come up with.”

By Anemona Hartocollis

A large hospital network that had offered to take over the nearly bankrupt St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan in Greenwich Village has formally withdrawn its offer, further clouding the hospital’s prospects for survival.

Stan Brezenoff, president of Continuum Health Partners, a consortium of five hospitals in Manhattan and Brooklyn, said in a letter to Henry J. Amoroso, the president and chief executive of St. Vincent’s, that he was withdrawing the offer because of what he said had been a negative reaction to it from both the State Health Department and St. Vincent’s own board. The letter was sent last Friday but not released until Thursday. But Mr. Brezenoff left open the possibility that St. Vincent’s could return to talks with Continuum.

The uncertainty over St. Vincent’s future has led some doctors — especially star doctors — to begin making plans beyond their affiliation with St. Vincent’s. Several St. Vincent’s physicians have approached Continuum about securing admitting privileges at its hospitals, which would give them the right to work in those hospitals, Jim Mandler, a spokesman for the network, confirmed Thursday. Mr. Mandler said Continuum was talking to those doctors, “because we are very much aware of the recruitment efforts of other hospitals for these physicians.”

In its offer submitted to St. Vincent’s on Jan. 22, Continuum proposed to continue running outpatient facilities for the hospital, on 12th Street and Seventh Avenue, while funneling those who need inpatient care to its own hospitals, St. Luke’s Roosevelt on West 58th Street and Beth Israel, across town on the East Side. Most emergency room and inpatient services would have been eliminated.

St. Vincent’s, the last remaining Catholic general hospital in New York City, is $700 million in debt and needed a state loan this week to make its payroll.

The Continuum plan created an immediate uproar at St. Vincent’s and among local politicians, who said the neighborhood could not be without an emergency room or inpatient services and who accused Continuum of being more interested in shutting down competition and improving its own finances than in saving neighborhood health care.

In his letter, Mr. Brezenoff expressed pique that St. Vincent’s was considering looking for other offers, hinting that he believed that this would turn Continuum’s offer into a bargaining chip. He made it clear that his offer had been a take-it-or-leave-it one.

“On reflection,” Mr. Brezenoff said, “I feel constrained to take the formal step of withdrawing the proposal that we sent to you on January 22, 2010.”

Mr. Brezenoff declined to comment Thursday, but his swift withdrawal of the offer seven days after submitting it reflected his reputation as a skilled player of political hardball, skills honed as a former president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch.

His letter indicated that the door was still open to negotiation if St. Vincent’s came back to him on his terms. “Needless to say, I hope, we stand ready to resume discussions and negotiations at any time if it appears that this would be productive,” the letter said.

Sister Jane Iannucelli, the vice chairwoman of St. Vincent’s board, declined on Thursday to comment on Mr. Brezenoff’s letter.

Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn put a positive spin on Mr. Brezenoff’s decision, saying it could be good for the hospital, because it indicated “a growing recognition of all the parties involved in this process that the community is not going to accept a proposal that doesn’t sustain a full-service hospital.”

Continuum was absent from a meeting Wednesday with Gov. David A. Paterson, Mr. Amoroso, local elected officials, union leaders and hospital creditors to discuss a long-term solution for the hospital’s financial problems. The governor said after the meeting that the state had agreed to keep St. Vincent’s afloat for at least a month while it looked for partners.

Mr. Brezenoff suggested in his letter that the state had been critical of Continuum’s plan to eliminate the hospital’s inpatient beds and close its emergency room. Diane Mathis, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said the department had taken a neutral position on it. “This process has really just begun,” she said.

By Anemona Hartocollis

For more than 150 years, St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan has been a beacon in Greenwich Village, serving poets, writers, artists, winos, the poor and the working-class, and gay people.

It has treated victims of calamities: the cholera epidemic of 1849, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the 9/11 attack and, just last year, the Hudson River landing of US Airways Flight 1549. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay got her middle name from the hospital, where her uncle’s life was saved in 1892 after he was accidentally locked in the hold of a ship for several days without food or water.

But today the hospital is struggling, and last week, in what could mean the death knell of the last Roman Catholic general hospital in New York City, a chain of hospitals proposed to take over St. Vincent’s, shut down its inpatient beds and most of its emergency room services, and convert it into an outpatient center tied to hospitals uptown and on the East Side.

Gov. David A. Paterson’s office said on Tuesday the state was extending a $6 million emergency loan to help St. Vincent’s meet its payroll, an indication of how dire its finances had become.

How St. Vincent’s went from a cherished neighborhood institution to one threatened with extinction is a chronicle of increasingly troubled management whose problems were made worse by the economics of the health care industry, changes in the fabric of a historic neighborhood and the low profit potential in religious work.

It was once part of the Roman Catholic Church’s social and political network in New York City, a cradle-to-grave embrace of parishioners who were born in Catholic hospitals, educated in parochial schools, married in the church and given last rites by a priest.

Last week, a day after the announcement of the proposed takeover, members of the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic order of nuns that founded the hospital in 1849, gathered for a noon Mass at St. Vincent’s second-floor chapel and vowed to fight. “We are not going away,” said Sister Jane Iannucelli, vice chairwoman of the hospital board, standing in the light of stained glass windows.

“One of the things that’s so crucial to the Sisters of Charity is serving the poor,” she said.

It was that very calling, some industry executives suggested, that may have helped make the hospital obsolete.

“Helping the poor is indeed the mission and the cause célèbre,” said Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospitals Association, a trade group. “Therein lies the dilemma.”

Other hospitals emphasize high-tech care and rush to invest in the fancy equipment and celebrity doctors that attract patients with the means to pay for them; St. Vincent’s sticks to its motto of “compassionate care,” rooted in its origins as a place that trained nurses and that was under the auspices of nuns.

As the Village changed, becoming home to more middle-class families, by many accounts St. Vincent’s failed to change with it. In 2007, several years after an ill-fated merger with other Catholic hospitals, St. Vincent’s management proposed selling off its maze of outdated buildings around Seventh Avenue and 12th Street to build a state-of-the-art high-rise building across the street, to be designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, famous for cutting-edge projects like the glass pyramid expansion of the Louvre museum in Paris and the John Hancock Tower in Boston.

But some said it was too late. In an indication of how St. Vincent’s reputation had fallen in the neighborhood, during a fierce debate over whether to demolish a low-rise Modernist building to make way for the new hospital, the actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins suggested that St. Vincent’s no longer served the neighborhood well.

“I would not want to bring my children there,” Ms. Sarandon declared at a landmarks preservation hearing.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, St. Vincent’s ministered to those affected, and was bursting at the seams. But by the 1990s, drugs and public awareness helped bring AIDS under control, and the Village’s wealthy newcomers were choosing other hospitals.

From 1996 to 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, the number of patients the hospital admitted went down by 10 percent, while the rate for hospitals citywide was flat, state records show.

And its emergency room volume has been growing faster than the citywide rate, suggesting that it has the worst of both worlds — more emergency room patients and fewer inpatient admissions, which are where the money is.

St. Vincent’s is a major city contractor for homeless services, and hospital administrators said that homeless people from all over the city find their way there for treatment.

In short, many of the patients who frequent St. Vincent’s are part of the old Village rather than the new Village, as was clear from a tour of the emergency room last week. It was electric with activity, every bed filled. Many of the patients were elderly, from Chinatown, or grizzled remnants of the Village’s old working class. Nuns from Mother Theresa’s order hovered about.

The room, like other parts of the hospital, had a homey feeling, more like a place television’s kindly Dr. Marcus Welby would have taken his patients rather than the overly caffeinated environment of “House.”

“There’s a sense we’re here for the mission, and it truly permeates,” said Dr. Eric Legome, the chairman of emergency medicine.

Despite 62,000 emergency visits, nearly 1,800 births, almost 22,000 hospital admissions and 263,000 outpatient visits a year, according to St. Vincent’s officials, the hospital is bleeding red ink, and has been for years.

Hospital officials, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of negotiations with Continuum Health Partners, the chain that has offered to take over the hospital, said the hospital was close to having to declare bankruptcy for the second time since 2005. It is about $700 million in debt.

Officials blamed a high rate of poor and uninsured patients as well as cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and the hospital’s inability to negotiate favorable contracts with health insurance companies, claiming their fees were 30 percent below the market rate.

Catholic hospitals in some parts of the country continue to thrive, but the New York City hospital field is much different from what it was 100 years ago; New Yorkers with health insurance now can choose from a number of prestigious hospitals.

To remain competitive, in 2000 St. Vincent’s merged with several other Catholic hospitals to form St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers.

Along with the flagship hospital in the Village, it ran seven other hospitals: Bayley Seton and St. Vincent’s on Staten Island; Mary Immaculate, St. John’s and St. Joseph’s in Queens; St. Mary’s in Brooklyn; and St. Vincent’s Westchester, in Harrison, N.Y. It was also affiliated with St. Vincent’s Midtown, formerly St. Clare’s, in Midtown Manhattan.

The merger was conceived as a way to streamline management and give the hospitals pricing leverage, but it was troubled from the beginning. After closings and sales, the network was left with just one New York City hospital, the flagship; a psychiatric and substance abuse treatment hospital in Westchester; and several nursing homes and other outpatient facilities. Some of St. Vincent’s debt was inherited from the closed hospitals.

Over the last few years, St. Vincent’s has tried to polish its image, recruiting the Giants quarterback Eli Manning and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to raise money and attract customers.

It has traditionally been one of the beneficiaries of the Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner, an annual charity roast at the Waldorf-Astoria, where John McCain and Barack Obama traded jabs just before the 2008 election. The hospital’s chairman is Alfred E. Smith IV, a prominent Wall Street investment banker and the great-grandson of the New York governor who ran for president in 1928. Mr. Smith did not respond to a request for an interview.

In 2004, St. Vincent’s turned over management to Speltz & Weis, the first in a series of turnaround consultants. It paid the firms millions of dollars a year to run the hospital and hired their officials as hospital executives. The system filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early July 2005, when it appeared, according to court papers filed by hospital creditors, that it would be unable to make its payroll.

In a lawsuit filed in 2007, some of the hospital’s creditors painted a picture of a hospital system trapped between unscrupulous consultants and a passive or gullible board. The lawsuit accused David E. Speltz and Timothy C. Weis, the hospital system’s former chief executive and chief financial officer, of delaying the bankruptcy organization while they and their consulting firm collected millions of dollars in fees.

The lawsuit accused them of hiring high-priced contractors and padding their fees, instead of using hospital employees to do work. And it says they leveraged their positions with the hospital to negotiate the sale of their consulting company to Huron Consulting Group, in Chicago, also a defendant in the case.

From 2004 until the lawsuit was filed, St. Vincent’s paid Speltz & Weis, which was based in New Hampshire, $30.8 million and Huron $1.2 million in fees and expenses, according to court papers.

The expenses included a personal membership in a private university club; trips to New York for spouses; hundreds of dinners in Manhattan restaurants’ opera tickets; groceries, dry cleaning and laundry bills; and travel and housing fees for consultants from outside New York, according to court papers.

Lawyers for Mr. Speltz and Mr. Weis did not return calls for comment. But they said in court papers that the creditors had written a “revisionist” history of events that unfairly blamed their clients for a bankruptcy that was actually caused by a $60 million shortfall in accounts receivable that had not been detected by auditors. Their firm had to bring in contractors for important jobs because previous St. Vincent’s managers had unwisely eliminated key positions, the lawyers said. The lawsuit is headed for mediation.

The current chief executive, Henry J. Amoroso, is its fourth since 2004. He did not respond to requests for comment. St. Vincent’s board announced last weekend that it had retained another crisis management firm, Grant Thornton.

Sister Jane, the vice chairwoman, acknowledged that the hospital was on the precipice. “We have had enough money to pay our salaries,” she said, but added, “The cash flow has gotten tighter and tighter, and yes, we are in a very vulnerable position.”

Last Thursday night, more than 500 people crowded into a basement meeting room at Our Lady of Pompeii Church on Carmine Street to protest the proposed takeover. One man, Mark Leonard, spoke of how a nurse offered to come to his house and baby-sit after he took home his very fragile twins from the St. Vincent’s intensive care unit.

“You guys must be exhausted,” he remembered the nurse calling to say. “You need a night out with your wife.”

Nancy Spannbauer, a program director for the Penn South senior citizens’ program in Chelsea, told of how she had been in the home of a 91-year-old woman a few days earlier while a doctor tried to get the woman to go to the hospital.

“Eventually she gave in,” Ms. Spannbauer said. “And she said, ‘Well, I suppose if I have to, I’ll only go to St. Vincent’s.’ ”

By Anemona Hartocollis

The financially ailing St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan in Greenwich Village got a month’s reprieve on Wednesday, as Gov. David A. Paterson met with hospital officials, elected officials and others to try to keep the hospital from closing.

After the 90-minute meeting in his Manhattan office, the governor said that he expected to be able to keep the hospital afloat for the next four weeks through a combination of state loans and help from its creditors. On Tuesday, St. Vincent’s received an $8 million loan — $6 million from the state and $2 million from a creditor — just to meet its current payroll.

But Governor Paterson was guarded about the hospital’s long-term prospects, saying only that he was forming a task force to look at how to run the hospital more efficiently and to examine the health care needs of the surrounding community and how they might best be delivered.

“We are trying to give it every chance to survive,” Governor Paterson said of St. Vincent’s. But he said the hospital had lost $80 million last year, and made it clear that the state’s offer of help was not open-ended, saying, “We don’t want to put supplies on a sinking ship.”

One person who was at the meeting, who asked not to be named because the meeting was private, said St. Vincent’s newly hired restructuring consultant, Mark E. Toney, had suggested that as much as $20 million might be needed to stabilize the hospital.

St. Vincent’s, which is carrying $700 million in debt, revealed last week that it had been looking for a partner to help keep the hospital from going bankrupt for the second time in five years or being forced to close. Continuum Health Partners, which operates St. Luke’s Roosevelt and Beth Israel hospitals in Manhattan, among others, is the only potential partner to have stepped forward.

But Continuum’s plan to close down the hospital’s inpatient beds and emergency room, turning it into an outpatient operation, generated immediate opposition from the neighborhood.

The hospital, founded by the Sisters of Charity, has been serving Greenwich Village since 1849, and is the last remaining Roman Catholic general hospital in New York City.

The governor said that the Continuum plan had not specifically been discussed at the meeting, but that “when you have a hospital teetering on the verge of insolvency, there isn’t any relief you won’t consider.”

Among others at the meeting were City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; Alfred E. Smith IV, the chairman of St. Vincent’s board; hospital creditors and the state health commissioner, Dr. Richard F. Daines.

“We seem to have bought the hospital another four weeks, so that’s a good thing,” Ms. Quinn said. “We’re not in as much of a panic mode.”

Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, who was also at the meeting, said there seemed to be a willingness on the part of both the state and private creditors to extend credit to St. Vincent’s while it tried to restructure. “The prognosis here is not a good one, but it’s probably the best thing that can be done at this point in time,” Mr. Raske said.

St. Vincent’s merged with several other Catholic hospitals in 2000, but many of those hospitals were in poor neighborhoods, and the merger seemed to only deepen its financial problems. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005 and divested itself of most of the other hospitals, which were sold or closed.

But St. Vincent’s officials said the main hospital had been hobbled by mortgage debt and pension obligations from the divested facilities, as well as the recession, Medicare and Medicaid cuts and a high proportion of poor patients.

By Steven Greenhouse

The Senate voted 60 to 37 on Thursday to confirm M. Patricia Smith, the New York State labor commissioner, for the Labor Department’s No. 3 post.

The vote came three days after Democrats mustered 60 votes to overcome Republican opposition to Ms. Smith, whom the Republicans accused of making misleading statements in her Congressional testimony.

Ms. Smith will serve as the department’s solicitor, its chief law enforcement official, who traditionally plays a crucial role overseeing wage-and-hour and job safety enforcement.

Ms. Smith is known for vigorous enforcement against minimum-wage and overtime violations in New York, and some Republican senators have voiced concern that she would be hostile to small business.

“She clearly has a deep and passionate commitment to helping American workers,” said Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who leads the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “Her expertise is needed now more than ever, particularly in this economy when American workers are struggling and deserve a strong advocate.”

Republicans protested that the Democrats had rushed Monday’s cloture vote so it would take place before Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts, was sworn in. Mr. Brown took his oath on Thursday.

Ms. Smith’s confirmation had been held up for three months by Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the labor committee’s top Republican. Mr. Enzi accused Ms. Smith of misleading the Senate in testifying about a New York program, Wage Watch, in which labor unions and immigrant groups worked with state officials to uncover wage-and-hour violations.

During the confirmation fight, Republicans voiced concern that that program was used to help unions organize workers. Republicans also said Ms. Smith had been untruthful when she testified that she had not held discussions about expanding the Wage Watch program.

Ms. Smith ultimately acknowledged that she had unintentionally misspoken on some matters, saying she had meant to say only that she had not authorized the program’s expansion.

By Kenneth Lovett
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

ALBANY – Gov. Paterson has authorized a $6 million loan to St. Vincent’s Hospital to help the cash-strapped hospital make payroll, the Daily News has learned.

“This is a dire situation, but I don’t want to see this hospital close unless every available means has been employed,” he said.

Paterson will meet Wednesday with St. Vincent’s management and board, its lenders, and local elected officials to discuss if there are ways the hospital can restructure and move forward.

The hospital is carrying a $700 million debt load and is losing $5 million to $10 million a month, Health Department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said.

The no-interest $6 million state loan is in addition to $2 million being kicked in by GE Capital to keep the beleaguered hospital going a while longer.

The $6 million will come from a hospital restructuring program that will be jointly administered by the Health Department and the state Dormitory Authority.

“It should last them long enough so they can make a decision about whether to file for bankruptcy,” said one official with knowledge of the situation.

Paterson said he would not have authorized the money if bankruptcy was assured. He said the hospital’s survival is important for area patients.

“The possible closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village will tear a huge hole in New York’s Health Care Safety Net,” charged BALCONY Director Lou Gordon as the Business and Labor Coalition of New York urged the New York State Department of Health to provide immediate assistance to maintain the hospital.

“It makes no sense to close the emergency room of St. Vincent’s Hospital which is the only hospital serving the West Side of Manhattan below 59^th Street. This community is bursting at the seams as thousands of New Yorkers are relocating to the apartments and condos there. New York is building a new subway line on the West Side, we are creating a condomania on 42^nd Street and Chelsea is experiencing an unprecedented boom. St. Vincent’s Hospital is the most valuable health resource in the community. On September 11, 2001, St. Vincent’s played a key role in providing medical services to those at and near Ground Zero. New York State cannot turn its back on the health care needs of the businesses and union workers who rely upon the Hospital as a primary center of medical and emergency services.”

“If Washington can save Wall Street, Albany can save St. Vincent’s Hospital,” stated Gordon.

“I know how vital the St. Vincent’s Hospital services are to the community I once represented as its State Senator” stated Catherine Abate president and CEO of Community Healthcare Networks.

“I urge the state to do everything possible to save St. Vincent’s.”

“Thousands of New York City school students and teachers rely upon this hospital for care. We urge the State Legislature and Department of Health to keep the hospital open and viable,” stated Alan Lubin co- chair of BALCONY. “Closing St. Vincent’s Hospital is Bad Medicine.”

“We urge members of BALCONY to join City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick , Senator Tom Duane, Congressman Jerald Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in contacting New York State Department of Health Commissioner Richard Daines telling the state to make every effort to Save St. Vincent’s Hospital,” concluded Bruce Ventimiglia, Co-Chair of BALCONY.

BALCONY members are urged to go to Speaker Quinn’s website and join the campaign to Save St. Vincent’s hospital — http://council.nyc.gov/html/action_center/stvincents.shtml

For more information contact BALCONY Director Lou Gordon (212) 219-7777 loug@balconynewyork.com

Click here to read the BALCONY Bulletin (1/28/10)

By Anemona Hartocollis

One of New York City’s largest hospital systems has made an offer to take over the financially struggling St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, provoking opposition from elected officials who fear the loss of critical medical services, especially emergency care, for tens of thousands of patients who could be sent elsewhere.

The proposal by the hospital system, Continuum Health Partners, to take over St. Vincent’s and turn it into an outpatient center would mean the loss of the city’s last Catholic general hospital, at least in the form in which it has been known for more than 160 years.

St. Vincent’s treats a disproportionate number of poor, homeless and uninsured patients, who could be forced to go elsewhere for emergency and inpatient care, perhaps to the city-run Bellevue Hospital Center across town. St. Vincent’s acquired significance for many New Yorkers in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, when it became a gathering place for people searching for loved ones.

It has been looking for a financial lifesaver to help it stem millions of dollars a month in losses and to stave off the possibility of a second bankruptcy after emerging from its first in 2007. The Continuum proposal would turn the hospital into a walk-in health-care center that would maintain some emergency services but would no longer take 911 ambulance calls, the most serious cases. It also envisions maintaining St. Vincent’s well-known H.I.V. and psychiatric services.

If the deal goes through, Continuum could get tens of thousands of new patients. Depending on how the deal is structured, Continuum could take over St. Vincent’s valuable real estate, which could potentially be sold. There would be no exchange of money; Continuum would take on the hospital’s debt, said to be around $700 million, and try to restructure it with financial support from the state and creditors.

The proposal would not include other St. Vincent’s facilities around the metropolitan area, or its nursing homes and its psychiatric and substance abuse hospital in Westchester County.

A decision to sell is up to the board of St. Vincent’s, but the hospital is under pressure from creditors and the state to find a solution to its problems. Henry J. Amoroso, the president and chief executive of St. Vincent’s, sent a one-page memorandum to hospital physicians and staff members Tuesday confirming that the hospital had received a letter of interest from Continuum. Mr. Amoroso said he was writing in response to a report in The New York Post on Tuesday outlining some aspects of the proposal.

Mr. Amoroso said the hospital was in “serious discussion” with GE Capital and TD Bank, which hold some of its debt, “about how best to restructure the burdensome debt that we were left with when we emerged from bankruptcy.”

He said the hospital’s board was still trying to find “the best solution to allow St. Vincent’s to remain an acute-care hospital.”

Community reaction was strong. A united front of West Side politicians, including Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president; and Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, sent a letter to Dr. Richard F. Daines, the state health commissioner, saying that the proposed conversion was “unacceptable.”

They pointed out that it would leave much of the West Side without a hospital. Likely destinations for patients of St. Vincent’s, which has several buildings clustered around Avenue of the Americas, Seventh Avenue and 11th and 12th Streets, are St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, with components on West 59th and West 114th Streets, and Beth Israel Medical Center, on First Avenue and 16th Street, both owned by Continuum. Others are Bellevue, a few blocks north of Beth Israel, and New York Downtown Hospital, near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ms. Quinn suggested that a state-sponsored bailout or restructuring might be in order. “No one’s cavalier about the seriousness of St. Vincent’s financial house,” she said in an interview. “But what we need is to come together and find a solution that keeps it open, not one that basically abdicates the state’s responsibility to have full-service health care infrastructure for the West Side of Manhattan.”

In a statement, Continuum said that it had been invited by St. Vincent’s to make a proposal to preserve the hospital in some form as “an alternative to financial liquidation.”

It added that if St. Vincent’s rejected the proposal and tried to continue on its own, “they have our full support.”

The State Health Department also issued a statement Tuesday painting a dire picture of St. Vincent’s financial condition and saying that Dr. Daines had been trying to help broker a deal that would “ensure that residents of the West Side of Manhattan continue to have access to quality health care services.”

But the department said that St. Vincent’s “is not competitive within its market.” The hospital has been losing $5 million to $10 million a month, according to the state.

Hospitals across the city have suffered from what they say are low reimbursement rates from the government and private insurers; large numbers of poor patients; and, more recently, the recession, coupled with state health-care cuts.

In what some health-care officials characterized as a last-ditch effort, St. Vincent’s has been hoping to stay in business by building a new hospital, which would free up a large part of its property to be sold for about $310 million to the Rudin Organization, which would develop housing.

The plans would require significant rezoning. Continuum’s proposal casts doubt on the future of those development plans, said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the city’s Health and Hospital Corporation, said that Bellevue officials believed they would be able to handle their share of emergency and trauma patients from St. Vincent’s. She said Bellevue would have a harder time absorbing psychiatric patients, but Continuum’s proposal would keep psychiatric services running at the St. Vincent’s location.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York said in a statement that it would be “sad and disappointing” if St. Vincent’s closed. Although the archdiocese does not have a role in the hospital, it said it was monitoring the situation and recognized how hard it was to run a hospital.

The hospital is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic order that founded the hospital in 1849, and the Diocese of Brooklyn, a consequence of a merger with Catholic hospitals in Brooklyn and Queens more than a decade ago. If the hospital were sold, the bishop of Brooklyn and the Sisters of Charity would have to decide whether to ratify the decision, said Msgr. Kieran Harrington, a spokesman for Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio. Monsignor Harrington said it “would be premature to comment now” on what the bishop planned to do.

NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2010 – The 800 registered nurses who work at St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in Greenwich Village fervently oppose the proposed takeover of the 727-bed facility by Beth Israel Medical Center and its parent Corporation, Continuum Health Partners. Within 60 to 90 days of the takeover, all acute care, surgical units, and emergency services would be shut down.

Hundreds of nurses from the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) will protest this action outside the facility on Thursday, Jan. 28, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The hospital is located at West 12 St. between 6th and 7th Avenues.

“Where would we be if the St. Vincent’s emergency room had not been not there for 9/11 and the airplane landing on the Hudson River?” said Eileen Dunn, a registered nurse at St. Vincent’s and president of the NYSNA bargaining unit there. “St. Vincent’s has served the community for 160 years, and can continue to serve the community through a reasonable restructuring plan. Shutting the doors is not the answer.”

The hospital is $700 million in debt and has been struggling financially for years. Under the proposal, St. Vincent’s regional trauma center would be severely scaled back. St. Vincent’s is also designated for AIDS treatment and psychiatric care.

“This proposed takeover by Beth Israel will devastate the community by closing the only acute-care facility on the Lower West Side of Manhattan,” said John Hiltunen, a registered nurse at St. Vincent’s and member of the NYSNA Board of Directors.

“St. Vincent’s is integral to the very fabric of the neighborhood and the city,” said Lorraine Seidel, MA, RN, director of NYSNA’s Economic and General Welfare program. “It is one of the cornerstones of Greenwich Village. It would be tragic to succumb to a plan which disregards the healthcare needs of this community. NYSNA nurses will do all we can to keep St. Vincent’s open.”

The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

Nurses Association contact: Randi Hoffman 212-785-0157, ext. 118, cell 646-707-7359.

Statement by NYS Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried

“After 9/11, St. Vincent’s was the primary admitting hospital for the injured survivors,” said Assembly Health Committee chair Richard N. Gottfried. “Closing the St. Vincent’s Emergency Room and Level 1 Trauma Center would be devastating to the local community, and in the event of a catastrophe, would endanger the City. In the aftermath of September 11, the emergency room was expanded to be able to respond to everyday emergencies as well as large-scale disasters and mass-casualty events. We must do everything possible to protect St. Vincent’s, and especially its ER and TraumaCenter.”

By Carl Campanile

A rival, powerhouse medical group has proposed taking over and shuttering the 160-year-old St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village, which would spell the end of the city’s only remaining Catholic hospital, The Post has learned.

Continuum Health Partners — which operates Beth Israel, St. Luke’s and Roosevelt hospitals in Manhattan — has submitted a plan to assume control of the financially struggling, 727-bed St. Vincent’s, sources said.

The new corporate operator would “close all acute care” units — such as inpatient beds and surgical services — within 60 to 90 days, according to a source involved in the discussions.

The proposal has real muscle behind it.

Two holders of a combined $300 million St. Vincent’s debt — GE Capital and TD Bank — support the Continuum takeover with the tacit approval of the state, sources said.

State Health Commissioner Richard Daines previously served as CEO of Continuum’s St. Luke’s Hospital. Under the plan, St. Vincent’s would be converted from a hospital to a community health center with Continuum in charge, sources said.

Patients eventually would be rerouted to other city hospitals for surgical and in-patient care.

The plan also would severely scale back St. Vincent’s regional trauma and emergency center.

Under the proposal, Continuum would continue to operate ambulatory care or outpatient treatment services at St. Vincent’s, and possibly expand such services.

The proposal was spelled out in a letter sent by Continuum CEO Stan Brezenoff last week to St. Vincent’s board of directors.

The death of St. Vincent’s would leave the lower West Side without a full-service hospital. The closest facilities would be New York Downtown Hospital, Beth Israel, NYU and Bellevue on the East Side, and Roosevelt Hospital at 10 Avenue and 58th Street.

St. Vincent’s also serves special populations. It is one of the state’s designated AIDS centers, and has a psychiatric unit with 79 licensed beds.

“St. Vincent’s is an outpost of health care on the West Side. There’s nothing else near it. I got to make calls to save them,” said state Sen. Tom Duane, who represents the area.

“You can’t control what kind of emergency treatment people need. Remember what happened on 9/11?” Duane said.

Kevin Finnegan, political director of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, said, “It would be outrageous for the state to even entertain offers to close the only hospital that services hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who work or live on the West Side of Manhattan below 59th Street.”

It’s unclear what would happen to some of the vacant or unused space, although it could be sold to help reduce St. Vincent’s $700 million in debt, sources said.

The proposal throws into doubt St. Vincent’s existing plan to build a new medical facility and sell its campus to the Rudin Co. for $300 million to erect a condo complex.

The hospital had only just gotten the go-ahead from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission last summer to proceed with its $1.6 billion modernization project after years of protests.

There is still an ongoing lawsuit over the project.

Under financial pressure, St. Vincent’s had shuttered its Midtown hospital in 2007 and unloaded two hospitals in Queens.

Continuum and St. Vincent’s declined comment.

by Steven Greeenhouse

For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

In its annual report on union membership, the bureau undercut the longstanding notion that union members are overwhelmingly blue-collar factory workers. It found that membership fell so fast in the private sector in 2009 that the 7.9 million unionized public-sector workers easily outnumbered those in the private sector, where labor’s ranks shrank to 7.4 million, from 8.2 million in 2008.

“There has been steady growth among union members in the public sector, but I’m a little bit shocked to see that the lines have actually crossed,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce.

According to the labor bureau, 7.2 percent of private-sector workers were union members last year, down from 7.6 percent the previous year. That, labor historians said, was the lowest percentage of private-sector workers in unions since 1900.

Among government workers, union membership grew to 37.4 percent last year, from 36.8 percent in 2008.

Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, voiced dismay that government employees now represented a majority of union members.

“It’s a very bad sign,” he said. “We’ve been banged around some, but when you see what’s been happening to the industrial base of this country, to the steelworkers, to the autoworkers, they’re been hammered much more.”

After rising the two previous years, overall union membership fell by 771,000 in 2009, to 15.3 million, largely because employment declined over all. But the rate of private-sector unionization fell because two sectors where unions are especially strong — manufacturing and construction — suffered especially large job losses. Construction lost more than 900,000 jobs last year, falling to 5.9 million, while 1.3 million factory jobs were lost, declining to 11.6 million.

The overall unionization rate edged lower, to 12.3 percent last year from 12.4 percent in 2008.

Damon A. Silvers, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s policy director, said the decline in private-sector unionization “tells us that good jobs are disappearing faster than bad jobs.”

According to the labor bureau, median weekly earnings for full-time unionized workers were $908 last year, compared with $710 for workers not represented by unions. The bureau attributed this difference not just to unionization but also to variations by occupation, industry and company size.

Notwithstanding the recession, government employment grew last year, inching up 16,000, to 22,516,000, according to the bureau.

Fred Siegel, a visiting professor of history at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization, said, “There were enormous political ramifications” to the fact that public-sector workers are now the majority in organized labor.

“At the same time the country is being squeezed, public-sector unions are a rising political force in the Democratic Party,” he said. “They depend on extra money for the public sector, and that puts the Democrats in a difficult position. In four big states — New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California — the public-sector unions have largely been untouched by the economic downturn. In those states, you have an impeding clash between the public-sector unions and the public at large.”

Several labor officials and scholars said private-sector workers could regain their majority in a year or two because of potential large-scale layoffs of government workers in the face of the budget squeeze faced by so many cities and states.

Assessing the drop in private-sector unionization, Paula B. Voos, a labor relations professor at Rutgers, said, “It’s a sad commentary on the ability of private-sector workers to unionize.”

“Unions have less strength when they represent a lower percentage of workers,” she said. “Nonetheless, unions have strength in those sectors of the economy where they are organized. Workers who are in the entertainment industry, workers who are on the docks of the Port of New York and New Jersey still have the strength of their labor organizations.”

Noting that union members generally have higher earnings, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a statement: “As workers across the country have seen their real and nominal wages decline as a result of the recession, these numbers show a need for Congress to pass legislation to level the playing field to enable more American workers to access the benefits of union membership. This report makes clear why the administration supports the Employee Free Choice Act,” a bill that would make it easier to unionize.”

But J. Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a corporate-backed group opposing that legislation, had a different response to the report.

“Labor union membership is an outdated concept for most working Americans,” he said. “It is a relic of Depression-era labor-management relations.”

State Budget: Governor’s proposal would hurt kids, taxpayers
NYSUT Media Relations – January 19, 2010

ALBANY, N.Y. January 19, 2010 – New York State United Teachers today said massive cuts proposed for education would force schools to cut teachers and programs, jeopardizing student progress while stalling the state’s ability to create jobs and revitalize the economy.

“How can you race to the top with an education budget that’s laden with red ink?” asked NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “NYSUT understands the pain that the state’s deep fiscal crisis has inflicted on so many; our members and our professions have been hit hard too. Yet, slashing more than $1.1 billion from public schools and again hacking away at SUNY, CUNY and community colleges totally contradicts the major investment the Obama Administration is seeking for education through Race to the Top.”

Iannuzzi said Gov. David Paterson’s education budget leaves school districts in the unenviable position of either proposing double-digit property tax increases, or eliminating the programs and teachers that New York’s children need. More devastating cuts to SUNY, CUNY and the state’s community colleges, already reeling from years of budgetary ax-swinging, “would slam shut the door to higher education for many of New York’s students, especially the unemployed seeking retraining and preparation for new careers. This derails the state’s efforts to build a knowledge-based, high-tech economy in upstate New York,” he said.

Iannuzzi said NYSUT, along with its higher-ed affiliates, have grave concerns about the impact the proposed Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act impact would have on access to, and quality at, our public university systems.

“The next generation of New York’s workers must come from New York public schools and universities,” Iannuzzi said. “Employers are going to demand it, and state policymakers must ensure that New York’s education system can meet that demand.

“Promising a knowledge economy without an investment in knowledge is a hollow promise,” Iannuzzi said.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta noted that, historically, the governor’s proposal is the first word in the annual budget battle. “We are confident that legislators from both parties will understand the impact this proposal would have on the ability of schools – both charter and regular public schools- to meet the needs of students, and the property tax increases homeowners would likely face,” Pallotta said. “As always, we will be working with the Legislature and the governor to improve this spending plan to ensure the final budget – the last word – meets the needs of our public schools and colleges.”

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

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Statement of CSEA President Danny Donohue
on Gov. David Paterson’s proposed state budget.

“Gov. David Paterson’s unwillingness to address the misuse of $62 million in taxpayer money on temporary state workers should be evidence that there are still better budget choices to be made. Hiring and shortchanging temporary workers in dozens of state agencies for years on end is a misguided priority and a violation of the law. Before the governor asks union-represented state employees for concessions he needs to change his own administration’s practices that undermine working people.

CSEA will address these issues and so many others in the course of the weeks ahead with the objective of protecting jobs and services and their impact on the quality of life for New Yorkers.”

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New York State Nurses Association statement: Executive Budget relating to health care

LATHAM, NY – Jan. 19, 2010 – The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) warns that the Governor’s proposed $1 billion in healthcare provider cuts is a number so large that its impact on facilities will be devastating.

Budget information obtained early Tuesday morning outlines nearly $1 billion in reductions to health care and an additional $240.2 million in assessments and surcharges.

Proposed cuts to hospital services, nursing homes, and home care and personal services will leave providers understaffed and put the public at risk. “These cuts, coupled with a lack of state regulation to ensure safe staffing, provide a formula that will negatively impact patient care and compromise patient outcomes for years to come,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, Nurses Association CEO.

The Nurses Association urges the legislature to put the well-being of New Yorkers first and reject the Governor’s proposed healthcare cuts that impact patient care.

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Nurses Association opposes budget cut to SUNY nursing education LATHAM, Jan. 20, 2010 – The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA)
opposes Governor Paterson’s recommended $143,100 cut to funding for expanded SUNY nursing programs.

While the SUNY program is just one part of nursing education, it is integral to the larger effort of meeting the long-term needs of the nursing shortage. “While we applaud the Governor’s extension of funding for the Senator Patricia McGee Nursing Faculty Scholarship Program and continued funding of private nursing education, we cannot ignore the need for funding at our SUNY institutions,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, Nurses Association CEO. “Without sufficient nursing programs, the nursing shortage will worsen and patient care will be severely compromised,” she said.

NYSNA urges the legislature to address the current nursing shortage and reject the Governor’s damaging cuts to SUNY’s nursing education programs.

Contact: Erin Silk, 518.782.9400, ext 224 The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

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Albany – The governor’s proposed 2010-11 budget calls for a quarter of a billion dollars in negotiated give-backs from state employees, when the savings could easily be achieved by reducing the state’s reliance on costly private consultants, instead.

The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) applauds the governor for recognizing savings can be achieved by reducing the use of consultants. The governor recently proposed to reduce the use of information technology consultants for an estimated savings of as much as $15 million per year. The governor also identifies a savings in his proposed budget by reducing the state’s use of more costly private contract insurance examiners.

However, the governor’s consultant reduction plan is only the tip of the iceberg and does not go far enough. Our more aggressive proposal to cut the use of consultants across-the-board in state government can easily achieve the quarter of a billion dollars the governor is targeting from the state work force to close the budget gap.

I cannot and will not go to my members and ask them to reopen the contract we negotiated with the state in good faith when many of my members are sitting alongside more costly private contractors doing the same work. However, we are always willing to discuss issues that do not involve reopening our contract.

We await more details on the closures and consolidations the governor is proposing for the Office of Children and Family Services. We will seek to preserve the vital services our members provide to the state’s troubled youths and ensure that troubled and sometimes dangerous youths are not recklessly cast into our communities without adequate support.

PEF has identified significant potential savings for the state, such as the reduction in the use of consultants and reducing workplace injuries and their associated costs and have communicated these proposals to the governor.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 59,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

Tickets are only available online.

Here’s what the critics and others say about the show…

Winner of the “Outstanding Actor Award” @ The New York Fringe Festival Time Out… “(Four stars) Hogan Gorman gives a top-notch performance in this engaging autobiographical one-woman show.”

Salman Rushdie… “Hogan Gorman’s many characters are created with deadly accuracy, her writing is taut and lean, and her satire of the American medical system hits its mark.”

Show Business Weekly… “Hot Cripple successfully combines witty pop culture with the not so trendy tunes of America’s lower class.”

Backstage… “Gorman brings wonderful levity to a very dark yet real story.”

Curtain Up… “Hot Cripple makes its points with pathos and humor.”

Jester Journal… “Tons of self-deprecating and dark humor – a tale that is so well remembered and told that it seems natural on stage.”

I hope to see you there… and please spread the word.

xo

Hogan

http://hotcripple.com

OPPOSITION – Governor’s Charter School Program Bill #214

The New York State AFL-CIO representing over 2 million union workers, their families, and our retirees and their families is strongly opposed to the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the cap on the number of charter schools in the state and, equally to allow blanket authority for the Dormitory Authority to hand out construction finance to charter school companies.

The drive to create as many charter schools as possible at any cost has become an ideological obsession and ignores the realities of our state’s education needs. In fact, the driving factor behind this proposal is misinformation and half truths about the state’s cap on charter schools affecting federal assistance to the state.

This bill creates a dangerous escalation of the charter school program in New York State, a program that has not yet fully been tested and has created many funding problems for existing public school systems. While the charter school law has been in existence for ten years the law was flawed from the start and there have been serious questions raised as to the rights of employees of charter schools, the oversight and accountability of the use of public money by charter schools, the political nature of the approval process and the entire funding mechanism that is in place.

Prior to any adjustments to the cap on charter schools, clear and convincing evidence about the success of charter schools, the impact on individual communities and the impact on school budgets needs to be publicly aired. Considering that there are current state education cuts to school districts and that it is expected the Governor will propose even more cuts, it is unwise to give unchecked authority to create more charter schools to drain even more resources from public schools.

Further, charter schools should be subject to the same scrutiny as public schools as to how they operate, how funds are spent, the student selection process and other measures that ensure accountability oversight and public input. Finally, it needs to be clarified that charter schools are in fact publicly funded, public entities that are subject to the same requirements that other public entities are, including prevailing rate requirements, competitive bidding requirements, apprenticeship opportunity and other important safeguards in the Labor Law, State Finance Law and Education Law.

Therefore, it is urged that the bill in question be laid aside.

By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson proposed on Tuesday what would be the largest cut to school aid in more than two decades and nearly $1 billion in new or increased taxes and fees as he unveiled his budget, a plan that is likely to be the first chapter in a prolonged battle with the Legislature.

Searching for new sources of tax revenue amid a fiscal crisis, the governor proposed legalizing mixed martial arts, allowing the sale of wine in grocery stores, taxing bottled soft drinks, taxing cigarette sales on Indian reservations and deploying speed-enforcement cameras in highway work zones.

He even proposed charging fees to many families that enroll in an early intervention program for children with autism, attention deficit disorder and other special needs, and delaying one of his signature achievements — a plan to increase monthly welfare allowances.

Facing a $7.4 billion deficit this year, the governor is presenting a relatively lean budget by the standards of a state government accustomed to unrestrained spending. His office also delivered more sobering news, projecting that the state’s income will not return to the levels seen before the financial crisis until 2013.

The overall budget, including federal matching funds, would grow to $134 billion, up $787 million, or 0.6 percent, from the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. State spending would increase $745 million, or 0.9 percent, to nearly $80 billion.

“This is not a budget of choice; this is a budget of necessity,” Mr. Paterson said in a speech to the Legislature on Tuesday morning. “Ladies and gentlemen, the days of continuing taxation and the days of continuous spending have got to end,” he added. “The era of irresponsibility has got to stop. The age of accountability has arrived.”

Several dozen lawmakers skipped the speech, which took place in a large egg-shaped auditorium here, and those who did attend greeted the governor’s remarks with polite, if tepid, applause. Mr. Paterson has had a tense relationship with fellow Democrats, who control the Legislature, sometimes by design as he has sought to capitalize on voter discontent with the array of scandals emanating from Albany.

Lawmakers expressed a mix of caution and skepticism on Tuesday. “Some of the stuff is retreads from last year that never quite made it, and I imagine they’ll probably meet the same fate,” said Senator Diane J. Savino, a Democrat representing Brooklyn and Staten Island, who singled out the soda tax and the proposal to allow groceries to sell wine.

Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, said the governor should not have allowed for an even modest rise in spending. “I don’t think we really should be increasing it at all,” said Mr. Smith, the Senate president.

Senator Dean G. Skelos, leader of the Senate Republicans, said, “The greatest danger” was “the one posed by Assembly and Senate Democrats who no doubt will push to further increase spending and taxes just like they did last year.”

The leaders of the Legislature — Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver of Manhattan — said they needed more time to review the proposals.

As he faces an uphill election battle, Mr. Paterson’s budget is also a break from the typical practice of robust budgets in election years. With no money to throw at preferred interest groups, Mr. Paterson is betting that voters will reward him as a responsible steward instead of punishing him as a Scrooge.

His plan would cut school aid by 5 percent in a state with the highest per-capita spending on education. It would also slow the growth of spending on Medicaid, reduce by $1 billion spending on state agencies and eliminate $300 million in undesignated annual aid to New York City.

But Mr. Paterson avoided harsher medicine. He has made no significant cuts to the state’s work force and even assured union leaders that he would not seek layoffs this year, a risky move as the state faces huge deficits in the coming years.

His plan also assumes that there will be a significant recovery this year in the state’s tax collections and relies on a number of recycled proposals. A new tax on sugared sodas, $1.28 per gallon, would yield $465 million, similar to a proposal that Mr. Paterson made last year but dropped amid resistance from the Legislature and companies like PepsiCo Inc., which is based in Purchase, N.Y.

Mr. Paterson is also proposing an increase in cigarette taxes, raising the tax per pack by $1, to $3.75, a change that would bring total taxes in New York City to $5.25 per pack.

One of the most controversial measures is Mr. Paterson’s proposal to slash school aid. Under the plan, wealthier districts would be hit hardest, a strategy that has long been fought by the State Senate, especially by senators from Long Island. Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, called it “a colossal reversal of New York State’s commitment to providing every child with a real opportunity to learn.”

Mr. Paterson is also seeking to shrink the state’s troubled youth prison system, which is facing federal scrutiny and a class-action lawsuit. He wants to close perhaps the most infamous institution, Tryon Boys Residential Center in Fulton County, where a 15-year-old boy died in November 2006 after workers pinned him to the floor. Mr. Paterson also proposes consolidating or shrinking three other youth centers.

Another proposal would introduce fees to a state program that provides early intervention services for about 74,000 special-needs children. Families would be charged on a sliding scale, with fees starting at $180 a year for those with a household annual income of at least $55,126 and topping out at $2,160 a year for those earning at least $198,451.

Mr. Paterson is also proposing new assessments totaling $240 million on the state’s powerful health care industry on top of the nearly $1 billion in cuts in payments to health care providers.

He would close two tax loopholes, including one that allows people earning severance packages to avoid paying state income tax if they move out of the state. And he is proposing to restructure the state’s property tax relief program, known as Star, to make it less beneficial for the wealthy.

Budget watchdogs had a mixed reaction, although most said that the governor’s proposal lacked the gimmickry that had characterized many previous budgets.

“It looks pretty clean,” said Elizabeth Lynam, a deputy research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit organization. “On the whole, I think it makes a reasonable down payment on the problems the state is facing.”

Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative-leaning research group, said the governor was still proposing to spend too much.

“What they’re saying is, ‘Look, we’re below inflation now — isn’t that great?’ ” Mr. McMahon said. “The problem is you were several multiples of inflation ahead of personal income during one of the steepest recessions in recent history and you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so this isn’t good enough.”

Click here for the complete budget presentation: BUDGET

This year more than ever before New York State needs Business and Labor working together as we confront the challenges of our turbulent times. BALCONY provides New Yorkers with a framework for collaborative solutions to the challenges of a fair budget, affordable health care, infrastructure investment, education equity, small business growth, and job creation.

Since 2007 under the leadership of Co-Chairs Alan Lubin and Bruce Ventimiglia BALCONY has grown to be a coalition representing more than 1000 prominent businesses, trade associations, labor unions, non profits, and chambers of commerce throughout New York.

Click here for details: BALCONY MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Albany – The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) today released comprehensive research that reveals the state can save $656 million over three years by implementing PEF’s cost-savings recommendations. The research also includes examples of irresponsible uncontrolled spending by some state agencies, a complete disregard of state law by others, and sloppy and incomplete record keeping by many.

“At a time when the state is facing severe fiscal constraints, spending on consultants rose to $2.9 billion; a $100 million increase,” said PEF President Kenneth Brynien. “That’s the equivalent of 23,329 full-time
consultants working for the state, over 2,500 more consultants than the previous fiscal year. If that many state employees were added to the payroll during this fiscal crisis, there would be outrage.”

PEF’s research revealed some state agencies incurred astronomical consultant costs. The Racing Association Oversight Board paid a New York City law firm $689,901 for 1,275.40 hours of legal services which breaks out to $541 an hour. The same board paid paralegals even more. The law firm billed the state $51,535 for 93.20 hours of work by paralegals. That comes to $553 an hour! These are just some of the examples of irresponsible spending.

The biggest savings is in replacing Information Technology (IT) and engineering consultants with state employees. This week, the governor announced an effort to in-source IT consultants for an estimated savings of as much as $3 million. While we applaud the governors acknowledgement of what PEF has been saying for years that state employees can do the same work for much less than consultant, the governors plan doesn’t go far enough. PEF’s proposal to cut the use of IT consultants is much more aggressive and can save
the state a minimum of $116.9 million by replacing half of the IT consultants with state employees. Our plan to replace engineering consultants can achieve a minimum savings of $95 million annually.

The potential future savings from PEF’s consultant reduction plan could be even more because only 20 percent of total consultant expenditures are filed properly with the state Comptrollers Office as required by the contract disclosure law. Some reports that were filed are so riddled with errors and typos that the New York State Research Foundation reported paying a consultant less than a penny per hour.

“This out-of-control spending, and improper and sloppy filing is costing the state millions. New York’s professional workforce has come up with ways to change that. Now it’s up to the governor and legislative
leaders to make that change happen,” Brynien said.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 59,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

Since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), NYSUT has committed to partner with the State Education Department, the Governor and the Legislature to ensure New York’s eligibility and competitiveness for RTTT funding. We believe that the program will provide grant recipient states with a significant opportunity to improve educational infrastructure and implement initiatives that will raise student achievement. RTTT can also provide a model from which recipient states and other states can learn and adopt strategies that will make a difference in the education of America’s school children.

This letter is in response to certain claims regarding New York’s competitiveness in receiving RTTT funds and our charter school law, more specifically, the existing charter school cap. NYSUT’s position on raising the cap on the number of charter schools in New York State has been consistent – before we raise the cap, we must implement reforms in the areas of accountability, transparency and funding. Quality charter schools provide an opportunity to strengthen public education by piloting and sharing innovative practices that can be replicated to advance student learning. However, transparency of charter results, resources and practices is essential to inform policy and strengthen public education. Our position is in line with President Obama’s and Education Secretary Duncan’s beliefs about charter schools and the requirements under RTTT.

The charter school portion of the application that has been getting much public attention is worth 40 points out of a total of 500 (the charter school cap is worth 8 points out of 500). Given New York’s existing charter school law, New York is in a good position to receive a significant portion of the 40 points in this section. For example, New York already allows for unlimited conversions to charter schools. It is not clear why SED believes New York is at such a disadvantage.

Let us be clear – NYSUT opposes the request for changes to the charter school cap without major revisions in the charter school law including greater transparency, accountability and a better funding mechanism that doesn’t hurt public schools. Attempting to force hasty legislative action will be counterproductive to the process. Not only that, but based on SED’s recent legislative proposals, we are concerned that SED’s proposed application is not placing New York State in the best possible position to receive the maximum level of funding.

NYSUT wants New York State to receive these federal funds from Washington yet these changes must make sense for our students and our schools in New York. Components of charter school reform should include but not be limited to:

o Transparency and Accountability: The charter statute should be modified mandating that city and state officials audit both financial and operational data for charter schools, and that such data be made available under the state’s Freedom of Information law. Transparency of charter methods, results, resources and practices is essential to inform policy and strengthen public education.

o Equity: Charter operators must commit to serve at least the district-wide average of neediest students, including but not limited to English Language Learners and special education pupils. If necessary, the lottery process for charter attendance should be centralized and overseen by a neutral third party.

o Ethics Reform: Charter school board members and employees should be subject to the same financial disclosure requirements and conflict-of-interest prohibitions as other public officials and employees. For-profit operators should be banned from owning or operating charter schools, and management fees and charter operator salaries should be publicly disclosed. Charter school employees should be protected from anti-union animus.

o Fair funding issues: As strong advocates for the resources public schools and charter schools need to provide quality education for all students, we are committed to the principle of fairness. Fairness in resources means charter school funding cannot come at the expense of neighborhood public schools.

o Oversaturation: We continue to witness the debilitating effects of charter proliferation on many local school districts, most notably Albany and Buffalo. We seek remedies that limit saturation of new charters which would undercut existing quality charter schools and undermine a school district’s mission to provide quality public education for all.

o Shared Space: For every improvement made in public school buildings (with public or private dollars) to accommodate a charter school, comparable improvements should be made for other district schools located in the same building. The co-location of charter schools in New York City school buildings should be prohibited until New York City schools have reached their class size targets.

The intention of this letter is to clarify NYSUT’s position on charter school issues surrounding RTTT. The fundamental concerns that have been raised above must be taken into account and our response as a State must be thoughtfully developed. We urge the Legislature to ensure that these important accountability, transparency and funding measures are addressed.

Sincerely,

Andrew Pallotta
Executive Vice President

David A. Paterson, Governor

Click here to view the presentation by Gov. Paterson.

A Time to Rebuild

Read the Full Text of the speech.

The Business and Labor Coalition of New York is proud to announce that BALCONY Co-Founder Alan Lubin has re-upped as Co-Chair of BALCONY, serving with Founding BALCONY Business Co-Chair Bruce Ventimiglia.

“This is a pivotal time in New York’s history,” says Lubin, “and we need a collaborative effort between business and labor to build trust in the economy. Since 2006, we’ve found common ground, and moving forward, we can build on it.”

Lubin is energized with the decision to stay at BALCONY coinciding with his plans to step down as Executive Vice President of NYSUT. “Having a great life at both home and work is a treasure I have enjoyed,” says Lubin. But “after more than 40 years, it’s time to bite the bullet-time for me to move on from NYSUT so that new leadership can develop.”

“I will continue as Co-Chair of BALCONY and will help grow this fine organization. We are proud of the work we do advocating the affordable health care, assisting small business, impacting state government and helping people,” stated Lubin.

“BALCONY is committed to building a solid coalition between Business and Labor in New York State,” stated Ventimiglia.

Lubin’s leadership and optimism are a key natural resource at BALCONY – founded in 2006 by Lubin and Co-Chair Bruce Ventimiglia, Chair of Saratoga Capitol Management LLC.

CEO blames recession and funding cuts for the reduction in union and non-union jobs; seen as part of effort to transform itself into a community teaching hospital.

by Barbara Benson

Citing “severe financial shortfalls” stemming from the recession and a series of significant funding cuts, St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan announced Tuesday that it is laying off 180 people Tuesday. The cuts include union and non-union jobs, as well as managerial and patient-care positions.

Henry Amoroso, president and chief executive of the 3,800-employee Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, said in a statement, “The delivery of healthcare is changing in this city, state and country, and to ensure that St. Vincent’s 160-year healthcare mission continues, tough choices have to be made now.” He called the decision to make layoffs “painful” but added that St. Vincent’s will “transform itself into a community teaching hospital that will be more efficient in delivering essential clinical services and graduate medical education.”

While healthcare hiring nationally continues to be strong, several New York hospitals have resorted to layoffs as a means of coping with state and federal cuts in reimbursement. In early November, the Greater New York Hospital Association predicted that if all of Gov. David Paterson’s proposed health-budget cuts had been made, 12,000 hospital, nursing home and home care jobs would have been eliminated. The final version of the budget, however, did not include the worst of the proposed cuts.

“You can’t cut healthcare seven times in two years and not expect there to be consequences,” a hospital association spokesman said. “We have said time and again that hospitals have no room left to absorb additional cuts, and we’re deeply concerned that what happened at Saint Vincent’s today is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Since emerging from bankruptcy several years ago, Saint Vincent’s has aggressively been trying to cut back expenses and boost revenues. In this past year, the system recruited a number of surgeons who contributed to a nearly 5% increase of inpatient surgery in the past 12 months. It also formed a new Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, with new surgeons. And it is sharing a $25 million state grant with NYU Langone Medical Center to work on clinical affiliations.

by Nicolas Confessore

Alan Lubin

ALBANY — A coalition of teachers’ unions and local school officials mounted a legal battle on Wednesday against Gov. David A. Paterson, arguing that his decision to unilaterally withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in scheduled payments to school districts violated New York’s Constitution.

The educators asserted in a lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Albany County that Mr. Paterson had no power to withhold money after its expenditure had been authorized by the Legislature.

“This is a terrible day in New York’s history,” said Alan B. Lubin, vice president of the New York State United Teachers, one of the groups that helped draft the lawsuit. “For this coalition to stand back and watch the governor take the money that was allocated by the State Legislature for schools, for programs, for children, and pull it back, is really a terrible thing to have witnessed.”

Mr. Paterson announced Sunday that he would withhold the money after weeks of failed negotiations with the Legislature over how to close a $3.2 billion deficit. He also said that if the economy did not improve and if state revenues did not rise next year, the money being withheld could become the basis for cuts in next year’s budget.

At a news conference at the Capitol minutes after the lawsuit was filed, Mr. Paterson reiterated that the payments being withheld were part of the roughly $750 million in local aid that he was not distributing because the state was projected to run out of money before the end of the year.

“I am being sued for trying to keep New York State’s finances solvent,” Mr. Paterson said. “This is a desperate attempt by special interests to put their needs ahead of the people of the State of New York. This lawsuit does nothing to help us solve a severe cash crisis that threatens our ability to pay our obligations at the end of the month.”

The lawsuit was filed by the state teachers’ union and groups representing school district superintendents, school board members and administrators.

Leaders of the groups suggested, in a news conference on the steps of the Capitol, that children would suffer if the money, about $582 million in school aid and property tax reimbursements, was not restored. School district officials also suggested that they should not have to dip further into their own reserve funds — which total $1.1 billion statewide — before Mr. Paterson had exhausted the state’s own emergency fund.

L. Oliver Robinson, president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents and superintendent of the Shenendehowa School District outside Albany, said Mr. Paterson’s decision would force cuts in critical services.

“When I go back to my school district,” he said, “and meet with the kids in classrooms, the questions they’re asking me are, ‘Dr. Robinson, will we still have this? Will we still have sports? Will we still have music? Will we still have robotics?’ ”

A spokesman for Mr. Paterson said that the governor’s order meant that $120,000 was being withheld from Mr. Robinson’s district and that the school system had about $3.8 million in reserve funds.

Mr. Lubin proposed options to avoid the loss of school aid. Mr. Paterson, he said, should consider buying prescription drugs for state health plans from Canada, cooperative purchasing of school supplies or higher income taxes on the wealthy — a move that would raise taxes on high earners for the second time in less than a year.

“I would have him look at the revenue sources available in New York State, and some of the programs that he’s refused to look at for the past 16 months,” Mr. Lubin said.

Mr. Paterson singled out school officials and advocates for criticism, noting that while he had tried to delay payments equally across the board, those who filed the lawsuit were in essence arguing that their funding was sacrosanct, even amid the worst state fiscal crisis in a generation.

“What these school districts and unions and otherwise have done is said: ‘We aren’t the special interests — we’re extra special,’ ” Mr. Paterson said. “ ‘We’re supposed to get all the money and everybody else can just divide up the crumbs.’ ”

The lawsuit was filed in state Supreme Court in Albany County by New York State United Teachers; New York State School Boards Association; New York State Council of School Superintendents; and the School Administrators Association of New York State. Other education partners, including the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the New York State Association of School Business Officials and the state PTA, signaled their strong support.

The suit states the governor is violating the separation of powers doctrine of the state Constitution — and the constitutional guarantee of “a sound, basic education” for students — by ordering the withholding of millions of dollars in state aid payments to school districts when the Legislature not only approved those payments, but specifically rejected proposed education cuts by not enacting a bill submitted by Paterson on Nov. 25 as part of his deficit reduction plan.

“The governor may not agree with the Legislature’s spending priorities and may indeed have profound concerns about the results, but once he signed the state budget in April and approved the deficit reduction plan, he is constitutionally and legally bound to follow the law,” said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “The governor is overstepping his bounds. He clearly lacks any legislative, statutory or constitutional basis to withhold funds from school districts and, by doing so, he is harming children and their schools.”

“School districts cannot provide educational programs to students in an unpredictable and chaotic funding environment,” said NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer. “The governor’s unilateral midyear cut to schools has already created havoc and uncertainty in many districts, as they study their options – all of which have adverse consequences for taxpayers. We are deeply concerned about the governor’s action to withhold or delay payments to schools in the future.”

Kremer added, “School boards are bracing themselves for the tough fiscal challenges that lie ahead, when federal stimulus funds expire and costs continue to skyrocket. What we expect of our leaders is long-term financial planning and greater fiscal certainty, not chaos and doubt.”

“The law is the law,” said Dr. L. Oliver Robinson, president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents. “In seeking to delay school aid and STAR payments, Governor Paterson is choosing to ignore laws which require the state to pay certain amounts of aid to schools by certain dates. We are taking legal action today in part to prevent any governor from ever ignoring those same laws to permanently withhold aid.”

Robinson added, “As it is, Governor Paterson threatens that he may seek to turn these delays into permanent cuts. This puts school leaders in an impossible position. We cannot tell students, ‘Potentially, we will keep your teacher on the job,’ or ‘Potentially, we will continue the extra help you receive.’ We cannot tell employees or suppliers, ‘Potentially, we will pay you what we owe.’”

Kevin Casey, executive director of the School Administrators Association of New York State, added, “The governor’s action will deprive children of educational programming that many will not have the opportunity to make up. It also eviscerates the school district budget approval process, rendering meaningless the district budgets approved by district taxpayers.”

“The opportunity for a sound, basic education is a state constitutional right that ensures that our children are given the tools to thrive and drive the economy. Despite a court order and a legislative agreement to honor this commitment, the governor continues make proposals that turn back the clock on providing adequate school funding to achieve this goal. This delay will necessitate layoffs, as well as program and resource cuts,” said Geri D. Palast, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the education advocacy organization that led the successful constitutional challenge to New York state’s school finance system. “The governor’s decision to withhold education aid ignores a clear constitutional mandate, and it will have a profoundly negative impact on this state’s most valuable asset, its children.”

“If the governor’s actions are allowed to stand, and this aid payment guessing game is allowed to continue, school districts will have no choice but to make management decisions that are counterproductive to sound financial practices,” said Deedrick Bertholf, NYSASBO’s executive director.

New York State Congress of Parents and Teachers President Susan Lipman added that the governor’s decision “presents serious fiscal implications on the ability of local school districts to continue to provide necessary educational services to children. Lipman said the state PTA “supports the efforts of NYSSBA, NYSUT and other education advocates in seeking injunctive relief to stop the governor from taking these steps.”

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan B. Lubin agreed that the withholding of school aid would likely mean larger classes and the inability of districts to fund programs — such as speech therapy and extracurricular activities for children — and pay teachers and staff.

“Schools rely on state education funding and local property taxes to provide New York’s children with the sound, basic education they are guaranteed under our Constitution,” Lubin said. “The governor’s decision to withhold school aid has already led to layoff notices and worries that school districts will not be able to fund important programs, make payments to vendors and, in some cases, even meet payroll.”

The lawsuit seeks to stop the governor from usurping the constitutional policy-making authority of the Legislature, and asks the court to order the governor to release the appropriated funds immediately. The suit notes that, if the court does not stop the governor’s actions, “He will only be emboldened to take other … unilateral action, further unbalancing the three coordinate branches of government (and) silencing the voice of the people.”

“The governor is well-aware that his actions violate the Constitution but he seems intent on carrying through with them regardless of his constitutional obligations,” the suit states.

Among the suit’s plaintiffs are NYSUT through its President Iannuzzi; NYSSBA through its President Wayne Schlifke; NYSCOSS through its President Robinson; and SAANYS through its President Peter Kruszynski. CFE, NYSASBO and the state PTA are strongly backing the groups’ lawsuit.

Other individual plaintiffs include Doug Becker, a math teacher in Churchville-Chili; Brian Boyd, a fourth-grade teacher from Yonkers; George Heidcamp, president of the board of education in Saugerties; Paul Hetland, a social studies teacher from Rochester; Florence D. Johnson, a member of the board of education in Buffalo and president-elect of NYSSBA; Kimberly Petramale, a math teacher in Saugerties; and Harry B. Reeder, a member of the board of education in Herkimer.

In addition to Paterson, the suit names as defendants the state Division of Budget and Budget Director Robert L. Megna, as well as state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Read the full legal filing here:  LEGAL

by Sam Dolnick

Bronx advocates said that the City Council vote on Monday to reject a $310 million project to build a mall inside the Kingsbridge Armory provided an opportunity to come up with a more community-oriented plan for the massive red-brick castle.

City Council members who voted down the project 45 to 1, with one abstention, said that the plan, proposed by the Related Companies, would have created hundreds of jobs that would have paid at or around the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, pay that they called too low to support local families.

They wanted Related to pledge that every job at the mall would pay at least $10 an hour, arguing that the company was set to receive more than $50 million in tax credits and exemptions. Many cities across the country have similar requirements for projects built using public money.

But Related said that any requirement to pay above minimum wage would make it impossible to attract tenants or secure financing.

The two sides negotiated through Sunday night, but with neither willing to bend, the Council voted to kill project, quashing plans that the developer said would have created 1,000 construction jobs and about 1,200 permanent ones.

The Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance, a coalition of labor, religious and community leaders, said it would seek to work with a developer that would turn the building into a community resource that offers space for recreation, cultural and educational activities.

“We want development that will improve the community but not at the expense of pushing poor people out,” said Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a longtime Bronx advocate.

The vote was a surprising defeat for the Bloomberg administration, which championed the project as a valuable investment that would spur much-needed economic development in the city’s poorest borough.

But to many in the Bronx, the Kingsbridge Armory project and the prospect of so many low-wage jobs crystallized what opponents regarded as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s disregard for working-class families. The fight for a “living wage” became a populist battle against “profits for barons,” in the words of Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., and an opportunity to hold developers that use public funds accountable.

“I am against any irresponsible project that would bring negative impacts to the community,” said Councilwoman Annabel Palma, the leader of the Bronx delegation. She cited traffic problems and parking concerns, along with the low wages, as the project’s biggest problems.

Mr. Bloomberg called the vote “disappointing and irrational.” In a statement, he said, “As a result of today’s vote, we can say one thing for sure: There will be no wages paid at all at the Kingsbridge Armory for the foreseeable future.”

Related, which has built projects across the city, including several in the Bronx, blamed the collapse of the plan on “outside groups imposing artificial wage demands that do not exist anywhere else in New York City or New York State.”

The armory, a federal, state and city landmark on Kingsbridge Road at Jerome Avenue, was built by the city between 1912 and 1917 and was used to store arms and ammunition and to train troops. Since then, it has been used as a shelter for homeless women and a concert space, among many other incarnations, but it has sat vacant for more than a decade.

On Monday, council members played down the importance of the wage issue and maintained that land-use problems were the main reason for the outcome of the vote, part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. But for months, the wage dispute has drowned out other concerns.

Advocates praised the Council’s vote, and members of the alliance gathered Monday at City Hall with signs saying, “Bloomberg to Bronx: Drop dead.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s office said he would veto the Council’s decision. But the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said she had the two-thirds majority vote needed to override him.

The armory vote, originally scheduled for last week, was postponed to allow for further negotiation. One potential compromise was a city fund to pay retail employees at the armory extra wages on top of what employers paid, or to provide them with MetroCards and other benefits. The fund would have been financed partly with the $5 million that Related offered to pay for the building. That idea collapsed when the city lawyers said aspects of it would run afoul of the State Constitution, Councilman Joel Rivera said.

The Council’s demand for higher paying wages was not unprecedented. Nearly 200 cities already require developers using public money to pay more than the minimum wage, according to Peter Dreier, a politics and urban policy professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles who has studied wage issues.

At the Kingsbridge Barber Shop, across the street from the hulking armory, barbers and customers alike said the community did not need a mall, or more low-wage work.

“People need jobs, but they don’t need chump change,” Jose Nuñez said as he cut a customer’s hair on a recent afternoon. “This building belongs to the people in this area.”

From the barber’s chair, Courtney Brooks agreed. “We’re not suckers in the Bronx,” he said. “We’re not going to take whatever somebody is offering.”