When life gives you a billion-dollar boondoggle, use the settlement to make budget-saving lemonade! At least that appears to be Mayor Bloomberg's logic. Hizzoner is set to announce his executive budget proposal this morning, but yesterday he gave a little early taste and it's something of a surprise. In order to fill "an unexpected hole in the budget" the city is planning on using that half-billion CityTime settlement the city announced in March. See, there's a silver lining in the city getting swindled! more ›

Mayor Bloomberg seemed less ominous than recent years in announcing his $68.7 billion preliminary budget for the 2013 Fiscal Year yesterday, which is balanced as required by law and doesn't feature any tax hikes or layoffs of teachers or cops. Rocking a blue V-neck sweater in honor of the Giants' Super Bowl bid, Bloomberg told reporters, "Cities across the country have struggled to keep their heads above water - laying off teachers, police officers, or firefighters, with a few even having to declare bankruptcy,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We’ve avoided those painful steps, because we spent years planning ahead, made government more efficient and saved for a rainy day." more ›

Hurrahs are in order for the New York Public Library today, which was saved from potentially devastating city budget cuts. It was a tough battle, with a supporting campaign that involved publicly hugging the stone lions in front of the Stephen A. Schwartzman building, and vaguely threatening letters from small children ("Dear Mr. Mayor, DO NOT I repete DO NOT CUT the Librarys Buggets OR Else!!"). more ›

The firehouses will not be closing. As part of the same City Council budget agreement that saved 4,100 teacher jobs the 20 fire companies that were being threatened with closure, including the Ghostbusters firehouse, have been saved. Protesting works! more ›

We know that New Yorkers are a bunch of slobbering salt monsters who can strip the crystals off a Super Pretzel faster than you can say "hypertension." But don't prisoners deserve a modicum of salt to take the pain away of you know, being in prison? Mayor Bloomberg apparently disagrees: buried in his much decried budget is a provision that would slash $350K from the Corrections Department's food budget, the Daily News reports. Can't we give the salt demonizing a rest since it doesn't even give you heart disease? more ›

No one is happy with Mayor Bloomberg's 2012 Fiscal Year budget, a $65.7 billion plan that will involve 5,400 city layoffs—4,100 of them coming from the ranks of teachers (a 5% reduction in city teachers). A Brooklyn teacher whose job is threatened told the Daily News, "I'm really disappointed. With the population increases, I can't imagine what class sizes are going to be next year... The most vulnerable children will be hurt the most." For his part, Bloomberg blamed a lot of the mess on Albany and Washington D.C. more ›

We knew that Mayor Bloomberg's city budget was going to be painful, but we didn't realize it would lead to a fight between reporters at City Hall. Witnesses tell the Daily News that two reporters, WABC 7's Dave Evans and blogger Rafael Martinez Alequin, got into a heated exchange while listening to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, with Evans saying, "Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me like that again, or I’ll flatten you," and Alequin replying, "f---ing f-----t." Uh-oh. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg, who has promised that his $65.6 billion budget, which includes thousands of layoffs, will hurt, has eased up a little bit on one thing: The amount he's reducing funding for child care services for low-income children. Still, the NY Times reports that Bloomberg is looking for an additional $400 million from other city agencies to fill the deficit. more ›

Next week, Mayor Bloomberg will have to present the final numbers of his austere $65.6 billion budget that features thousands of layoffs, and he told reporters it will not be pretty. But Bloomberg made the point, "New York City has to balance its budget by law. We will go ahead and do that, you can rest assured. And it will be very painful because we have a lot less money, which means a lot fewer people... What we have to do is decide will it be fewer cops, fewer firefighters, fewer teachers, fewer this, fewer that." more ›

Five hundred forty police recruits that were supposed to be sworn in this month will now enter the NYPD later this year, a move from the Bloomberg administration that has the City Council and police union angry. The NY Times notes, "The department’s head count is now 34,525 officers, about 6,000 fewer officers than at the peak of departmental staffing, in 2000," which prompted this assessment from City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) in a letter to Mayor Bloomberg, "I believe you can't have economic recovery unless it's built upon the bedrock of a safe city. We learned that lesson in the '90s and apparently we are forgetting it now." more ›

Cathie Black wasn't the only thing Mayor Bloomberg got rid of this week. Hizzoner also quietly dropped the FDNY's much-criticized crash tax proposal from the budget. more ›

A day after announcing $1.6 billion in budget cuts that include thousands of layoffs, Mayor Bloomberg said that there's still going to be a $2.4 billion deficit for the following fiscal year...which means residents (and city employees) should expect to feel the crunch. He said on John Gambling's radio show," Somehow, in January, we've got to come up with $2 billion more in tax revenues, fee revenues, that sort of thing, or cuts, or what's more likely is some combination." Correction officers union head Norman Seabrook told the Post about his idea for raising money: A tax for tourists coming to NYC, "There's only one New York. Where else are they going to go?" more ›

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced about $1.6 billion in job and budget cuts, which include over 5,000 teaching positions being eliminated, 20 firehouse companies closing at night, and library service being cut by a day, as the city faces huge budget deficits. The cuts don't need City Council approval, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, "As we have done before the Council is prepared to act in a fiscally responsible manner. However, we must ensure these cuts do not fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable New Yorkers." more ›

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he teamed up with Spider-Man, er, Marvel Comics, to produce a free comic telling unemployed New Yorkers about the city's resources to help them find jobs. Hopefully City Hall has some extra copies, because Bloomberg unveiled about $1 billion in job cuts—thousands of positions are being eliminated—and other cost savings measures. more ›

The city tries to project what overtime costs will be, but apparently the projections are way off. The Daily News reports, "The city is set to bust its budget on overtime for cops, firefighters and other uniformed workers, spilling anywhere from $50 million to $140 million in red ink, fiscal monitors are warning." And the biggest chunk is from the NYPD, "with the department's overtime growing each year." Well, those street fairs aren't helping! more ›

Yesterday, the City Council approved, 48-1, the $63.1 billion city budget, which was hammered out by Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn last week. The budget features at least 1,000 layoffs, reducing library hours from six days to five, and other program cuts. Speaker Quinn said, "It’s neither good nor bad. It is the reality of the best the Council and the mayor could do in the times that we are in." more ›

The Mayor's office and City Council reached a $63 billion deal for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1. The City's press release is pretty pointed (italics are ours): "The plan balances the budget with no tax increases despite the assumption of a massive and disproportionate reduction in the amount of tax dollars the State returns to the City and the lingering impacts of the national recession. The City Council is expected to vote on the FY 2011 budget plan early next week, marking the ninth consecutive year Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council have enacted an on-time, balanced budget." more ›

After Mayor Bloomberg warned that the city's dire budget situation might force 4,400 teachers to be laid off, he announced today that he would move to block teachers' and principals raises in order to save some of the jobs. However, United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said the mayor doesn't have that power, "He does not have the power to unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract, and we have reached no agreement on his proposal to freeze teacher pay." more ›

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg revealed his "bleak," $62.9 billion budget which includes laying off 11,000 workers, closing fire companies, senior centers and pools and no new tax increases. And he laid much of the blame upstate, "We face a terrible price for Albany’s irresponsibility," accused the state government of "starving" the city, and added, "I will remind everybody who, unfortunately, may lose their jobs that it is because of Albany's fiscal irresponsibility." more ›

Thanks to the Times Square car bombing attempt and an uptick in crime (compared to recent years), Mayor Bloomberg is abandoning plans to layoff 892 police officers. His spokesman Stu Loeser issued a statement last night, "The mayor will lay out a budget on Thursday. … It won't include a reduction in the number of police officers out on our streets keeping New York City safe." However, it's expected that teacher layoffs will number between 6,400 and 6,700. more ›

While most city agencies have been asked to cut 8 percent from their budgets, City Council voted to raise its operating budget by 4.6 percent—a $2.3 million hike that brings the sum to $52.9 million. Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Chelsea) defended the budget increase, arguing it only went up because City Council employees have been given cost of living raises. "I would argue our budget is the same as it was last year," Quinn told the Observer. "We made a decision to treat City Council workers the same as other workers. Therefore, we gave everyone a cost of living increase." That said, the new budget breaks down to $1,036,920 for each of the 51 Council members, compared to $990,896 last year, the Daily News reports. more ›

If Gov. Paterson's proposed budget is approved and Mayor Bloomberg is unable to negotiate pay concessions from the teachers' union, city educators may face significant layoffs for the first time since 1976. About 11,000 of the city's 79,000 teachers might be fired, and others might be shuffled around the city to different schools, the Mayor said. more ›

With Mayor Bloomberg asking for $1.750 billion in budget cuts from agencies for this year and next, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler tells the Post, "It is serious, and it's serious for every agency," and didn't rule layoffs out, "So whether it's attrition or layoffs, some sort of personnel savings is going to be necessary in order to close the $5 billion deficit. It is hard to balance a budget of that size without dealing with the size of the city." The Citizens Budget Commission's Charles Brecher said, "In some ways, it's reassuring that they're at least, at the city level, facing up to the magnitude of the problem we have. We didn't have this discussion during the [mayoral] campaign." more ›

Last week, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum criticized the Public Advocate's budget being cut from $2.8 million to $1.7 million. She even claimed the reduction was "political payback" from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, because Gotbaum opposed extending term limits. Yesterday, the five candidates who wish to succeed Gotbaum—and one of whom will have to deal with a 40% smaller budget—appeared together to protest the cut which goes into effect on July 1. The NY Times reports, "The issue was not food stamps, or reproductive rights for women, or child abuse, or any of the other topics the public advocate’s office is generally involved in...The cut, [the candidates] concurred, was so draconian that it threatened the existence of the office, which functions, as mandated by the City Charter, as a government ombudsman and watchdog." Former Public Advocate Mark Green, who is running again, asked, “Why has only the watchdog over City Hall been cut 40 percent?" more ›

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council agreed on a $59.4 billion budget for the 2010 fiscal year. Besides agreeing on a 0.5% sales tax increase, the city will trim 2,000 (or 1,000) jobs, allow 16 firehouses to remain open, keep libraries open 6 days a week, and "spare 100 animals from being shipped out of the Bronx Zoo." The NY Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker hoped that the economy would perk up so next year's budget won't be as severe, but the Mayor added, "If our economy continues to stall, this may not be the last word on this year’s budget." more ›

With the city facing a huge deficit and much less Wall Street revenue, the Mayor's office and City Council have agreed on tax measures that will bring in $887 million in revenues. The NY Times reports there will not be a 5-cent plastic bag tax or sales tax on all clothing; Bloomberg and the Council "instead proposed increasing the city’s sales tax by half a percentage point, to 8.875 percent. In addition, the city would begin charging sales tax on clothing over $110. All clothing was previously exempt from such taxes." These, plus other measures, like "applying the full City Sales Tax to electric and natural gas customers that purchase energy from non-utility companies and a tax conformity package" must be approved in Albany. According to the Times, the Independent Budget Office estimates a household making $35,000/year will need to pay an additional $74 in sale taxes, while a household making $125,000/year "would pay an additional $237 a year, and one making $500,000 would pay $687 more." more ›

Overtime costs for cops and firefighters are on the rise and City Controller William Thompson doesn't think that the mayor's budget is sufficiently accounting for it. Today Thompson is presenting his report on the budget to City Council and beforehand told reporters, "The city routinely and severely underestimates how much annual overtime will accumulate, and inevitably this widens the budget gap that will need to be closed." Thompson said that the mayor's office is undershooting the OT spending by more than $140 million in a year that saw the city pay out more in overtime than recent ones that saw the blackout, the RNC Convention and sending troops to assist Hurricane Katrina damage respectively. A spokesman for the mayor said that no matter the estimates, the city's budget will be balanced just like any other. Over the weekend, Thompson also compared Mayor Bloomberg's recent comments about the futility of taxing the rich to former President Bush's "trickle-down philosophy." more ›

that in exchange for the checks, the Council agreed to raise both the property tax (by 7%) and hotel room tax. The Staten Island Advance says, "If the city's Department of Finance begins printing them immediately, homeowners should receive their rebate checks shortly after the new year, around the same time they will get their new property tax bills." The NY Times also adds that Bloomberg will not cut $20 million from the budget and some Council members expect to vote on the agreement today (though they warned that the deal could collapse). Some numbers: The property rebate checks cost the city $256 million; raising the property taxes to 7% in January (instead of June, as previously planned) means an additional $600 million for the fiscal year; and the hotel room tax hike brings an additional $100 million between March 2009 and June 2010. more ›

'Tis the season for depressing news: The Bloomberg administration wants to cut another $1.4 billion from the city's upcoming budget (he announced the first round last month). Each city agency face the same percentage of cuts, either 5% (or 7% if the city needs to spend less). The Daily News reports, "The Fire Department has been told to postpone a scheduled academy class of 110 new Bravest next month. The NYPD lost one class in the first round of cuts." And today, Mayor Bloomberg said this second round of cuts might not be enough: “The next cut is firehouses." The FDNY recently announced cutbacks for night tours at four units. more ›