BALCONY MEMBER Comments on the NYC Budget

Budget Deal Removes Teacher Layoff Threat

An agreement reached by New York City and the UFT will ensure that no New York City public school teacher will be laid off in the next year, Mayor Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn and UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced on June 24.

The agreement with the UFT includes financial savings to the city generated by redeployment of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool and a one-year suspension of study sabbaticals, along with additional resources from the City Council and the Department of Education.

The agreement forestalls the possibility – raised by Mayor Bloomberg in both the January Financial Plan and the Executive Budget in May – that the city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2011 would require the layoffs of more than 4,000 teachers.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said: “I want to thank all the parties involved in this agreement for their willingness to come together to prevent the harm that would come to our students from a massive loss of public school teachers. In particular I’d like to cite the key role played by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her members and staff, along with Chancellor Dennis Walcott and the DOE officials who worked with us to find ways to prevent what could have been a disaster for our schools.”

The UFT has agreed to procedures that will make it possible for the 1,200 teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool to be used more efficiently to fill long and short-term vacancies in their school districts. Such use is designed to save much of the money the DOE now spends on “per diem” substitutes to fill these vacancies.

The one-year suspension of study sabbaticals – which will take effect in the 2012-13 school year – will save the DOE the cost of teachers on these academic leaves. Teachers on one-year approved study sabbaticals receive 70 percent of their regular salaries.

Budget Cuts Could Strangle Sputtering Recovery

by James Parrott

The recent spate of indicators showing weakening in the economy is a reminder of the folly of government budget austerity as the best medicine. More than anything else, the economy needs more jobs. Businesses are not creating jobs because consumer demand, which accounts for two thirds of gross domestic product, is anemic.

Without consumer spending, businesses have no need to hire more workers. Budget cutting at the state and local government levels compounds the problem. Stubbornly high unemployment, evidenced in employment figures released late last week, in New York City reflects a faltering recovery. Historically steep state budget cuts enacted this spring will push joblessness higher in the months ahead. If the City Council accepts Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed budget cuts and layoffs, the city’s job market will see the proverbial double whammy from an already weak recovery compounded by state and city budget cuts that worsen unemployment.

Why the Recovery Isn’t Taking Off

While the Great Recession technically ended in June 2009, total employment continued to decline through the end of that year. Twenty-five million Americans are unemployed, discouraged or underemployed. Long-term unemployment is at record levels making this is the longest period of 8 percent-plus unemployment since modern record-keeping began in 1948. Unemployment remains over 9 percent. There are several reasons why this recovery has been tepid at best, and far weaker than previous recoveries since the Second World War.

American households, on average, are still saddled with high debt burdens, the result of a borrowing spree during the last expansion and the housing bubble. Families borrowed heavily in part to maintain living standards since the 2004-2007 expansion, the first during which wages were stagnant and family incomes did not rise. This continued a trend that began in the early 1980s, in which most of the income generated by national economic growth has been concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest 5 percent of the population.
ANALYSIS

Unprecedented mortgage foreclosure problems and the prolonged housing slump also have contributed to the weak recovery. A rebound in housing construction and the purchase of appliances and furniture normally provides considerable fuel for a recovery; this time the wrecked housing sector is a big anvil chained to the ankles of an already sluggish rebound. The continuing difficulty small businesses face in borrowing — largely due to weak consumer demand and the unwillingness of many banks to lend — is a third major factor behind the tentative recovery.

Finally, the recovery owes a good part of its snail’s pace to the continuing budget pressures weighing down state and local governments. State and local governments account for 12 percent of the national economy — one and a half times the federal government’s share and slightly larger than the business investment share. Weak tax collections and the winding down of the federal stimulus leave state and local governments with the unenviable choice between raising taxes or cutting spending. Most states and localities faced with this have cut spending and laid off teachers and other public sector employees to balance their budgets. Those cuts have subtracted from growth in the economy and added over a half million people to the ranks of the unemployed.

The Economic Battleground

It defies comprehension to think that more unemployment resulting from consumer belt-tightening and government budget cuts will pull us out of our economic muck. Stephen Roach, formerly a leading economist for Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, recently characterized debt-burdened and underpaid American consumers as “zombies” — the economic walking dead — whose constrained spending keeps the economy from firing on all cylinders. Yet Roach urged more belt-tightening on consumers. Many others among economic conservatives and the well-to-do try to shift blame for the economic crisis onto government or at least hammer away at the need to slash government spending.

This has become an epic economic battleground. On the one side, the burgeoning ranks of the out of work, the under-employed, the underpaid, the debt-burdened, and the millions trapped in a collapsed housing market seem to echo Langston Hughes’ refrain, “Let (America) be the dream it used to be.” On the other, the economically comfortable, who draw sustenance from a bailed-out financial sector and financial investments that enable them to seek profits from anywhere in the world, firmly feel that everyone else needs austerity.

New York City labor expert Ed Ott has a phrase for depriving working families of gainful employment: “economic capital punishment.” You have to go back at least 80 years to the eve of the New Deal to find a period in this country when so much of the public discourse tacitly accepted such a prolonged period of extraordinarily high unemployment.

New York City’s Less-than-Robust Recovery

As in many parts of the United States, high unemployment is no stranger to New York City. While the jobs recovery here has been in line with the nation’s overall, it is tepid at best and unemployment remains far higher than before the Great Recession. Fifteen percent of New Yorkers are unemployed or underemployed — that’s over 600,000 out of a workforce of 4 million. The average period of joblessness exceeds 40 weeks. Most of the drop in the unemployment rate in this “recovery” has occurred because discouraged workers have given up looking for jobs.

As Bloomberg noted when he presented his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal in early May, state budget cuts will take $6.8 billion in spending out of the New York City economy over the next year. In addition to cutting back on local school aid and threatening the jobs of thousands of teachers, the state budget cut support for the City University, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, public assistance and tens of millions in contracts to social service providers serving low-income communities. And in curbing Medicaid spending, the state budget will reduce the flow of over $2 billion in federal Medicaid payments to local hospitals and health care providers. Thus, the recent state budget deal will drag down job growth and subtract basically a year’s worth of federal stimulus from the city economy. Two steps forward, one step back. Recovery will have to wait.

While the mayor repeatedly blames the federal and state government for reducing spending, ironically his proposed city budget is cut from the same cloth. There has already been a reduction of 16,000 since 2009 in those working for the city or related agencies, including public libraries and the Health and Hospitals Corp. Bloomberg’s budget proposes to add 6,000 teachers and 3,000 other city employees to the ranks of the unemployed. In addition, the budget proposal slashes spending on childcare, homeless rental assistance, and services for youth and seniors, and closes firehouses, libraries, childcare and senior centers. Even through enrollment in CUNY community colleges has grown by 26 percent since 2008, the mayor proposes they receive less city funding than they did three years ago.

In the face of the lingering adversity resulting from the Great Recession — with rising poverty, ultra-high unemployment, record homelessness and demand for emergency food assistance — the mayor’s budget can only be described as austere.

Alternatives to Budget Austerity

The city needs budget policies that match resources to real needs. Is the city really getting value for the tremendous near-tripling in business tax breaks — now close to $3 billion — over the past decade, or for the $3 billion in contracting out for information technology, professional, clerical and maintenance services when city employees can more cost-effectively perform those services? Can the city afford $320 million in tax loopholes for hedge fund managers when that has the effect of shifting costs to low-income working families who can ill-afford to pay more for childcare?

Wouldn’t it be far better to begin to shift the tide toward shared sacrifice with the comfortable elite contributing through progressive taxation to help their fellow city residents re-build their economic lives? Budget austerity is not the solution to our economic calamity, not in Washington, not in Albany and not in New York City. The city can’t fight this battle on its own, but it should at least be fighting on the right side.
James Parrott is deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute (www.fiscalpolicy.org). He has been studying and writing about the New York economy since he landed in New York City a quarter century ago.

Fiscally Responsible Budget Funds Vital Services with No Additional Use of Trust Fund

CITY HALL – Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tonight announced an agreement on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget. The budget agreement includes a plan to avert proposed teacher layoffs and prevent the closure of fire companies.

Speaker Christine C. Quinn stated, “Even in these difficult fiscal times, New Yorkers expect us to protect the most vital services without putting our future economic stability at risk. Those New Yorkers can rest easy tonight knowing that our children will still have great teachers, our seniors will still have great centers to visit, and our neighborhoods will still have great firehouses to keep them safe. And I’m incredibly proud that the City Council, under the leadership of Finance Chair Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., was able to do all this without using any additional dollars from our Health Care Trust Fund. I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg and all of my colleagues for coming together to make tough choices, and produce a budget that is both fiscally responsible and responds to the needs of real New Yorkers.”

Fulfilling her commitment to fiscal responsibility, Speaker Quinn avoided any additional use of the city’s health care trust fund beyond what was proposed in the Executive Budget. Additionally, the Council decreased its total amount in restorations to the budget by $10 million compared to FY 2011. In order to preserve vital programs and services, the city identified extra revenues and recognized funds that had been allocated and not needed.

Speaker Quinn and the City Council made preventing teacher layoffs a top priority during budget negotiations and successfully reached an agreement to save thousands of teachers from the chopping block. Thanks to a collaborative effort between the teachers union, the Bloomberg Administration and the Council, teachers are protected for the upcoming fiscal year. Nearly one-third of the cost of averting layoffs will be self-funded by the United Federation of Teachers. Further funding was found within the Department of Education, with decreases to school bussing contract costs and other efficiencies.

“This budget protects jobs and vital services without mortgaging our future,” said Councilman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Chairman of the Finance Committee. “We saved teachers, firehouses, seniors, libraries and child care, and we did it without crippling our ability to deliver a budget next year. I want to thank Speaker Christine Quinn for her leadership, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for working with us to deliver this budget. We didn’t always agree, but we all had the best interest of New York City at heart. I also want to thank our Finance Division, my colleagues in the City Council, and most importantly, the public. They called our offices, they flooded our inboxes, they showed up in force at our hearings, and they told us exactly what was important to them. This was a collaborative process, and considering the challenges we faced from a struggling economy and reduced government aid, it was a success.”

The Council also successfully prevented the closure of any fire companies and protected senior and child protective services. Existing senior centers, as well as ten new innovative senior centers, will be fully funded. And while the Administration for Children’s Services will face layoffs, the Council restored funding to maintain the staffing levels of experienced case workers, those on the frontline of protecting the city’s most vulnerable children. Funding for several programs was successfully baselined, meaning future budget discussions about these programs will begin from a higher fixed level of funding. Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTS), District Attorneys, senior centers and CUNY will all have portions of their budgets baselined.

The City Council is expected to vote on the FY 2012 budget plan early next week.

by James Parrott

Demonstrators marched from City Hall to Wall Street last month to protest Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed budget cuts.

The recent spate of indicators showing weakening in the economy is a reminder of the folly of government budget austerity as the best medicine. More than anything else, the economy needs more jobs. Businesses are not creating jobs because consumer demand, which accounts for two thirds of gross domestic product, is anemic.

Without consumer spending, businesses have no need to hire more workers. Budget cutting at the state and local government levels compounds the problem. Stubbornly high unemployment, evidenced in employment figures released late last week, in New York City reflects a faltering recovery. Historically steep state budget cuts enacted this spring will push joblessness higher in the months ahead. If the City Council accepts Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed budget cuts and layoffs, the city’s job market will see the proverbial double whammy from an already weak recovery compounded by state and city budget cuts that worsen unemployment.

Why the Recovery Isn’t Taking Off
While the Great Recession technically ended in June 2009, total employment continued to decline through the end of that year. Twenty-five million Americans are unemployed, discouraged or underemployed. Long-term unemployment is at record levels making this is the longest period of 8 percent-plus unemployment since modern record-keeping began in 1948. Unemployment remains over 9 percent. There are several reasons why this recovery has been tepid at best, and far weaker than previous recoveries since the Second World War.

American households, on average, are still saddled with high debt burdens, the result of a borrowing spree during the last expansion and the housing bubble. Families borrowed heavily in part to maintain living standards since the 2004-2007 expansion, the first during which wages were stagnant and family incomes did not rise. This continued a trend that began in the early 1980s, in which most of the income generated by national economic growth has been concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest 5 percent of the population.

ANALYSIS
Unprecedented mortgage foreclosure problems and the prolonged housing slump also have contributed to the weak recovery. A rebound in housing construction and the purchase of appliances and furniture normally provides considerable fuel for a recovery; this time the wrecked housing sector is a big anvil chained to the ankles of an already sluggish rebound. The continuing difficulty small businesses face in borrowing — largely due to weak consumer demand and the unwillingness of many banks to lend — is a third major factor behind the tentative recovery.

Finally, the recovery owes a good part of its snail’s pace to the continuing budget pressures weighing down state and local governments. State and local governments account for 12 percent of the national economy — one and a half times the federal government’s share and slightly larger than the business investment share. Weak tax collections and the winding down of the federal stimulus leave state and local governments with the unenviable choice between raising taxes or cutting spending. Most states and localities faced with this have cut spending and laid off teachers and other public sector employees to balance their budgets. Those cuts have subtracted from growth in the economy and added over a half million people to the ranks of the unemployed.

The Economic Battleground
It defies comprehension to think that more unemployment resulting from consumer belt-tightening and government budget cuts will pull us out of our economic muck. Stephen Roach, formerly a leading economist for Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, recently characterized debt-burdened and underpaid American consumers as “zombies” — the economic walking dead — whose constrained spending keeps the economy from firing on all cylinders. Yet Roach urged more belt-tightening on consumers. Many others among economic conservatives and the well-to-do try to shift blame for the economic crisis onto government or at least hammer away at the need to slash government spending.

This has become an epic economic battleground. On the one side, the burgeoning ranks of the out of work, the under-employed, the underpaid, the debt-burdened, and the millions trapped in a collapsed housing market seem to echo Langston Hughes’ refrain, “Let (America) be the dream it used to be.” On the other, the economically comfortable, who draw sustenance from a bailed-out financial sector and financial investments that enable them to seek profits from anywhere in the world, firmly feel that everyone else needs austerity.

New York City labor expert Ed Ott has a phrase for depriving working families of gainful employment: “economic capital punishment.” You have to go back at least 80 years to the eve of the New Deal to find a period in this country when so much of the public discourse tacitly accepted such a prolonged period of extraordinarily high unemployment.

New York City’s Less-than-Robust Recovery
As in many parts of the United States, high unemployment is no stranger to New York City. While the jobs recovery here has been in line with the nation’s overall, it is tepid at best and unemployment remains far higher than before the Great Recession. Fifteen percent of New Yorkers are unemployed or underemployed — that’s over 600,000 out of a workforce of 4 million. The average period of joblessness exceeds 40 weeks. Most of the drop in the unemployment rate in this “recovery” has occurred because discouraged workers have given up looking for jobs.

As Bloomberg noted when he presented his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal in early May, state budget cuts will take $6.8 billion in spending out of the New York City economy over the next year. In addition to cutting back on local school aid and threatening the jobs of thousands of teachers, the state budget cut support for the City University, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, public assistance and tens of millions in contracts to social service providers serving low-income communities. And in curbing Medicaid spending, the state budget will reduce the flow of over $2 billion in federal Medicaid payments to local hospitals and health care providers. Thus, the recent state budget deal will drag down job growth and subtract basically a year’s worth of federal stimulus from the city economy. Two steps forward, one step back. Recovery will have to wait.

While the mayor repeatedly blames the federal and state government for reducing spending, ironically his proposed city budget is cut from the same cloth. There has already been a reduction of 16,000 since 2009 in those working for the city or related agencies, including public libraries and the Health and Hospitals Corp. Bloomberg’s budget proposes to add 6,000 teachers and 3,000 other city employees to the ranks of the unemployed. In addition, the budget proposal slashes spending on childcare, homeless rental assistance, and services for youth and seniors, and closes firehouses, libraries, childcare and senior centers. Even through enrollment in CUNY community colleges has grown by 26 percent since 2008, the mayor proposes they receive less city funding than they did three years ago.

In the face of the lingering adversity resulting from the Great Recession — with rising poverty, ultra-high unemployment, record homelessness and demand for emergency food assistance — the mayor’s budget can only be described as austere.

Alternatives to Budget Austerity
The city needs budget policies that match resources to real needs. Is the city really getting value for the tremendous near-tripling in business tax breaks — now close to $3 billion — over the past decade, or for the $3 billion in contracting out for information technology, professional, clerical and maintenance services when city employees can more cost-effectively perform those services? Can the city afford $320 million in tax loopholes for hedge fund managers when that has the effect of shifting costs to low-income working families who can ill-afford to pay more for childcare?

Wouldn’t it be far better to begin to shift the tide toward shared sacrifice with the comfortable elite contributing through progressive taxation to help their fellow city residents re-build their economic lives? Budget austerity is not the solution to our economic calamity, not in Washington, not in Albany and not in New York City. The city can’t fight this battle on its own, but it should at least be fighting on the right side.

James Parrott is deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute (www.fiscalpolicy.org). He has been studying and writing about the New York economy since he landed in New York City a quarter century ago.

June 16, 2011

DC 37 HOLDS MASSIVE FIGHTBACK RALLY – Don’t balance the budget on the backs of working people

On June 14, 2011, District Council 37, the city’s largest public employee union, joined by labor and community groups, held a massive rally at City Hall against draconian cutbacks to community services, the fiscal assault on public schools, parks and pools, libraries, social services and public health care and more, and the drive to crush public employees’ rights from coast to coast. READ MORE: http://www.laborpress.org/

June 3, 2011

ALBANY, N.Y. – Deeply concerned that a property tax cap “deal” hammered out by Albany leaders would destroy the ability of public schools to meet student needs — while also failing to provide the real tax relief that New Yorkers want — New York State United Teachers today launched a new television ad campaign opposing the ill-conceived plan the New York Times called “nothing more than a political crutch.”

The $1.3 million statewide ad, which can be found at www.nysut.org and on NYSUT’s YouTube channel, quotes a scathing May 26 Times editorial that declared the proposed tax cap would “do huge damage to already struggling schools and the state’s long-term economic competitiveness” at a time when public education is already reeling from more than $3 billion in state education cuts since 2008-09.

The proposed cap, which is also strongly opposed by the New York State AFL-CIO and the state NAACP, would lock in inequities stemming from three years of painful education cuts and exacerbate the achievement gap, which schools have been working diligently to close.

“Make no mistake, educators are taxpayers, too, and support real, meaningful tax relief,” said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “The agreement reached by the governor and Legislature fails to provide that relief. Instead, it would lead to the elimination of needed programs, even more overcrowded classrooms and thousands and thousands of additional layoffs. The impact on municipalities would cripple community colleges and prevent local governments from providing the essential public services that middle-class New Yorkers need.”

NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta added, “The only thing this ‘deal’ caps is the ability of educators and their schools to help students meet high standards. If enacted, it would destroy our schools by undemocratically allowing 40 percent of the voters to decide how much money local communities could spend to fund valuable education programs.”

The 30-second ad, which is running on network and cable stations statewide for at least 10 days, notes the Times’ editorial also called the proposed tax cap deal “disastrous,” hurting students, schools and families.

The ad urges viewers to call the Legislature and governor at 877-255-9417 and tell them, “This tax cap won’t work for anyone.”

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.

May 24th, 2011

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

Critics of the Mayor’s Budget Put Forth Their Own Ideas

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, facing a reduction in state and federal aid and a rise in city costs, has said that balancing New York’s budget will require shuttering 20 firehouses and laying off 4,100 teachers.

“We’re going to have to make some choices,” Mr. Bloomberg said during his weekly radio show with John Gambling on WOR-AM last Friday. “I can just tell you this: If you don’t cut A, then B’s going to get cut.”

Members of the City Council, community advocates and interest groups agree. But they have their own ideas about what B should be. With five weeks until a deadline for passing a budget, they are offering alternatives.

Not surprisingly, their proposals aim to save popular places and programs — firehouses, day care centers, rental vouchers for homeless families — and focus on the unpopular and the arcane.

Here are some of the alternatives that have been proposed:

CUT CONSULTANTS Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, argues that the Education Department should vastly reduce its spending on outside consultants. According to an analysis by his office, spending on consultants increased to $142 million in 2012, from about $33 million in 2004. (The numbers exclude special education costs, often mandated by law.)

“The solution to the teacher-layoff crisis is somewhere in this executive budget,” Mr. Stringer said. “There is a tremendous amount of waste regarding outside consultants across city agencies.”

The department has said that the consultants are needed and that their cost is reasonable.

Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, wants to cut back on information-technology consultants at the department ($52 million) and reduce spending on teacher recruitment ($20 million) and the department’s public affairs office ($2.6 million).

AGGRESSIVELY SEEK REIMBURSEMENTS The United Federation of Teachers argues that the city could mitigate teacher layoffs by claiming millions more dollars in federal reimbursements for services like transportation and speech therapy for special-needs students. Many of the reimbursements were halted after the federal government accused the city of lax reporting practices in 2005.

The city has been working to devise a new reporting system, which is supposed to be in place this fall, education officials said, and could allow the city to collect an additional $117 million in reimbursements next year.

But Michael Mulgrew, the United Federation of Teachers president, said that the city’s goal was too conservative, and that it should be working to recoup money from previous years. “With the mayor saying the budget is so tight that he has to do layoffs and cut services, how can he let this huge source of revenue go begging because of poor management?” he said.

Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the department, said, “We continue to aggressively pursue reimbursements and are working toward a long-term streamlined solution.”

RAISE SOME TAXES The Council’s Progressive Caucus is among the few voices calling for more taxes. It has asked Albany to reinstate a tax surcharge for high-income New Yorkers, and other groups have pushed for an increase in the hotel room tax. But Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mr. Bloomberg oppose raising taxes, virtually killing the idea in the Council.

COLLECT ALL EXISTING TAXES Several groups have urged the city to do a better job collecting taxes that are already on the books. District Council 37, the city’s largest union, has suggesting hiring more employees to collect taxes on billboards and cellphone towers (the union estimates that would bring in more than $40 million). The union has also suggested ending thousands of dollars in tax breaks for strip clubs. Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for the mayor, said the city had been expanding its tax-collecting force, and noted that the union had previously criticized efforts to devote more staff members to collecting taxes.

TAX PLASTIC BAGS The Independent Budget Office has offered its own list of budget ideas, including imposing a tax on plastic bags used in supermarkets (estimated to bring in $94 million) and eliminating parent coordinators from schools (estimated to save $86.7 million).

As the Council begins hearings on the budget, even its own members say they will probably be unable to save everything.

“I’m not all that sanguine about my ability to restore every vital service,” Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, the Council’s assistant majority leader, said. “One or more of these sacred cows are going to wind up slaughtered.”

May 23, 2011

FDNY Cuts Put Response Times Over National “Red Line”

Public Advocate de Blasio: 18 of 20 cut companies won’t meet basic standard

NEW YORK –A report released today by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio shows the cuts to 20 fire companies in Mayor Bloomberg’s Executive Budget will seriously imperil emergency response times. According to the report, 18 of these companies will exceed a national 4-minute standard after cuts are implemented—some by over a full minute. The National Fire Protection Association urges a 4-minute response to prevent fires from spreading beyond a single room, after which the risk of civilian death triples and property damage increases more than eight-fold.

“The neighborhoods targeted by these cuts will see their safety go up in smoke,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “If the Mayor succeeds in cutting these companies, some communities won’t meet the response times needed in places like Fargo, North Dakota, let alone a city where we need to fight fires on the upper floors of big apartment buildings.”

Council Member Elizabeth Crowley (D-30, Queens), Chair of the Fire & Criminal Justice Committee stated, “In addition to the findings in this study, the FDNY is not counting the time the 911-caller is spending with the 911 operator which could be up to two minutes. Response times are significantly higher than what the Administration is reporting– and these false response times are being used to justify closing fire companies. The Administration’s policy for reporting response times is misleading, inaccurate and dangerous.”

The Public Advocate’s report is based on response time increases estimated by the FDNY. The National Fire Protection Association standard is modeled responding to a fire at a two-story, single-family home where firefighting can commence soon after crews arrive. In a dense city like New York, firefighters require additional minutes to ascend multi-story buildings, making any response times above the national standard even more alarming. Read the report here: FDNY

May 5, 2011

Coalition Plans Week of Action to Stop Bloomberg’s Budget Cuts with Taxes on Millionaires and Ending Giveaways to Big Banks.

National Movement Connects the Dots to NYC, Demands Reform and Fair Share in Taxes from Financial Sector.

NEW YORK – A growing coalition of community, labor, and progressive groups announced today plans for a week of events starting May 9th, calling for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to end taxpayer-financed giveaways to Wall Street and ask for fair-share taxes from millionaires to mitigate his proposed budget cuts. The week of action will culminate in a major mobilization in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, May 12.

Click here for details: Coalition

Click here for the UFT Comment
Bloomberg calls for 5,000 teacher layoffs in city budget

February 17, 2011

Outlines Plan to Close $4.58 Billion Deficit without Tax Increase or Additional Cuts to City-Funded Services

City’s $5.2 Billion in Savings and Growing Economy Prevented More Cuts Caused by State Budget; State Action Required to Avoid Further Reductions

Nearly $2 Billion in Additional City Money Committed to Education to Cover State and Federal Funding Losses

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today presented a Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Preliminary Budget and an updated four-year financial plan. The Mayor outlined a plan to close a $4.58 billion deficit with no tax increases for New Yorkers and without additional cuts in City-funded services. The plan relies on $5.2 billion in savings generated though nine rounds of deficit closing actions taken by City agencies, additional tax revenues that reflect the City’s continually improving economy and $600 million in actions taken at the State level. The budget outlines the steps required to compensate for a loss of $2.1 billion in State funding, returned to the City, as detailed in the proposed State Executive Budget, and for the pre-existing $2.4 billion City deficit.

Click here for the full report: NYC Budget

February 17, 2011

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, escalating his battle with Albany over cuts to city programs, will announce plans to lay off nearly 4,700 teachers as part of a bleak budget to be released on Thursday.

Mr. Bloomberg will portray the reductions as necessary to make up for a loss of $2.1 billion in state aid. But his austere forecast will also serve a political purpose, given the mayor’s desire to wring more money out of the Legislature and to abolish a law that protects veteran teachers.

The mayor, according to a preview of his budget released on Wednesday, will threaten to eliminate 6,166 teaching positions in total: 4,666 through layoffs and 1,500 through attrition. That would reduce the 75,000-person teaching force by 8 percent, and it would be the first time the city has laid off significant numbers of teachers since the 1970s.

State law requires the city to lay off teachers in the reverse order that they were hired, but Mr. Bloomberg has said that merit should factor into the process. He has called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to incorporate changes to the law in his budget.

“We face very difficult decisions on how to balance the budget without harming the progress we have made,” Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor, said in a statement. “The only thing worse than laying off teachers would be laying off the wrong teachers.”

Mr. Bloomberg is also expected to announce cuts to senior centers, child care programs for poor families and rental subsidies. But he is expected to affirm his pledge to leave the city’s police force intact.

Mr. Bloomberg will point to some bright spots in the city’s finances, despite a $2.4 billion deficit. He will report that because of the strengthening economy, the city has raised its forecasts for tax revenue by $2 billion for the current fiscal year and the one that begins on July 1.

His budget is far from final: it must still be negotiated with the City Council, and it is subject to the whims of Albany, which is notorious for back-room deals and missed deadlines.

The mayor’s resistance to the state’s proposed cuts and his push to change hiring rules immediately has at times put him at odds with Mr. Cuomo, who took office this year. On Thursday, he will once again call on the state to restore $300 million in annual revenue-sharing money.

The governor’s staff has repeatedly disputed Mr. Bloomberg’s math, saying that the city’s estimates for education financing are unrealistic and that it could draw on reserves to stave off layoffs.

Union officials have dismissed the mayor’s warnings as political jockeying meant to help him further his political agenda. Mr. Bloomberg has in previous years warned of mass layoffs that never transpired.

Mr. Bloomberg will also pledge to add $2 billion in city money to make up for the state cuts.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s teachers’ union, said the mayor should devote more money to education and increase taxes on the wealthy.

“I don’t understand why the mayor continues to be talking about teacher layoffs,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “This is all a politically bogus game on their behalf.”

By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL

New York City could lose $1 billion in education aid from the state, forcing the nation’s largest school system to cut more than 21,000 teachers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.

Read the entire story: Education Aid

by David W. Chen and Javier C. Hernandez

There was barely any nod to Manhattan. Nor any mention of the economic virtues of Wall Street, or much talk about national politics.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought on Wednesday to shore up his relationship with his constituents and make the case that he was still fully engaged in his third term.

In a speech notable for what was not said, Mr. Bloomberg, delivering his 10th State of the City address, went out of his way to keep the theme distinctly parochial by highlighting neighborhood projects, unveiling proposals aimed at helping small businesses and pledging not to raise taxes.

Mr. Bloomberg also made a concerted effort to rebut criticism that he was ignoring the boroughs outside Manhattan. Beyond paying homage to the refurbished St. George Theater on Staten Island, where he delivered his speech, the mayor referred repeatedly to his administration’s efforts to revitalize Brooklyn (a new amusement area in Coney Island), Queens (a real estate project at Hunters Point) and the Bronx (a new fishing pier at Hunts Point Landing).

But the mayor did not utter a word about the snowstorm last month that unleashed widespread criticism when streets in many neighborhoods went unplowed for days. The address was devoid of big, sweeping initiatives, in part because of Mr. Bloomberg’s admonition that “money is tight — very tight.” But in one of several small-scale initiatives that dominated his agenda, he promised to spare restaurants that received an “A” on health inspections from being fined for any violations uncovered by the inspection.

Mr. Bloomberg, stepping up his populist attacks on Albany and public-sector unions, also vowed to push even harder for pension overhauls. He pledged not to sign any labor agreement that included salary increases unless it was accompanied by a promise to cut benefit packages.

Not only did Mr. Bloomberg mostly avoid two favorite topics, Wall Street and national politics, he also tried to be a bit self-deprecating — hardly a familiar character trait — by opening with a light-hearted video of the Staten Island groundhog that bit his finger in 2009.

“He is my good friend,” the groundhog said, in a voice-over provided by a human actor.

Given the frequency with which Mr. Bloomberg mentioned neighborhood issues — including a much-publicized proposal to allow livery cars to make on-street pickups outside of Manhattan — it seemed, at times, almost more of a State of the Borough speech than a citywide one.

Mr. Bloomberg may have been trying to prove to his naysayers that he was not aloof, distracted or out of touch, as he has been recently portrayed. One recent poll indicated that Mr. Bloomberg’s popularity had tumbled noticeably in the wake of his administration’s response to the Christmas weekend blizzard, a payroll accounting scandal and his selection of Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with little education background, as the new schools chancellor.

Still, on Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg did not apologize, though he has done so in the past. And that was disappointing to some, including Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, who said that the mayor had missed an opportunity to regain confidence.

“It’s part of leadership to acknowledge mistakes,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It would have been cleansing.”

Instead, in an address that ran about 45 minutes, Mr. Bloomberg did offer a low-key, and less grandiose, presentation than he had earlier in his tenure. He proposed, for instance, to construct family centers at Rikers Island and improve the juvenile justice system. He also proposed, under a plan led by Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, online forums for city employees to exchange ideas to improve services or save money.

He was most impassioned when talking about immigration reform, and beseeching Albany lawmakers to allow the city to manage more of its affairs on its own. And for his long-running battle to reform the pensions system, he announced that he had enlisted the help of former Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Union leaders did not take kindly to Mr. Bloomberg’s words. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said he was disappointed that the mayor spent little time talking about education. He also took offense at Mr. Bloomberg’s warning over contracts, considering that the teachers’ union is now in the middle of negotiations.

“It shows a lack of professionalism,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “I think he was trying to get cheap political points considering what’s happened with his administration recently.”

Harry Nespoli, chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group of unions representing city workers, said, “Lowering benefits, changing layoff seniority for teachers and returning civil service to the Tammany Hall era will not produce one job.”

Some elected officials were dubious of Mr. Bloomberg’s sincerity. City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, a Republican from Queens, said: “The outer boroughs need more than livery cabs. We need the attention of city services. We need capital investment, better school funding, and to be treated as equals with the inner borough.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that Mr. Bloomberg had unveiled “an innovative and realistic agenda” and that “he rightly recognizes that government has to do more with less and that during these difficult times, tough choices and sacrifice are required.”

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat who had criticized Mr. Bloomberg over the snowstorm response, said: “The mayor laid out a very powerful agenda which reminded people why they elected him. He didn’t give a ‘feel good’ speech; he gave a ‘get real’ speech, which New Yorkers needed to hear.”

by Courtney Gross
Jan. 7, 2011

Mere hours after the City Council and the Bloomberg administration announced an agreement on a mid-year budget plan, officials and advocates braced themselves.

One budget battle may be done, they said, but more spending clashes and collisions are hurling towards City Hall.

“We’re thrilled with any amount of restoration,” said Michael Stoller, executive director of the Human Services Council. But, he added, “With no one entertaining any ideas of raising revenue . . . we are really nervous.”

He probably should be.

Read the entire article: Gotham Gazette