Results tagged “cutbacks”

The MTA may be getting a bailout, but that also comes with some cutbacks in other areas. As in, say goodbye to your station agent (200 will be eliminated). The NYC Comptroller's office declares, "Station agents are the eyes and ears of the subway system. By their very presence, they reduce the likelihood of fare-beating, vandalism, assaults and more serious crime. They help riders and make the subways easier to navigate." So when you see something, will you be able to say something? See how many positions were eliminated at your local stop, with this website from the Comptroller's office. Will you feel less safe without one on duty?

Yesterday the Metropolitan Museum of Art sent out a statement announcing 74 layoffs at its stores (following 53 layoffs last year) with more to come from the museum's overall staff. The NY Times reports that as many as 250 full and part time jobs may be lost before summer. While the cuts will hit every department, including curatorial, Met officials have declared the changes won't affect the museum's hours, exhibitions or standards. On top of endowment losses, "the museum will receive $1.7 million less in operating help from the city this year and has been told to expect another cutback that could be as high as $2.4 million in the next fiscal year." With the recession hitting even the most prestigious of institutions these days, the paper notes that the layoffs are also in part due to problems that its merchandising arm have been facing. If you'd like to help, they also shared that membership renewals have been on the decline (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Seems like just yesterday that the Central Park Zoo polar bears were opening Christmas gifts (video), but 2009 is proving to be a monetarily tough one for not just humans, but animals too. Last week Gov. Paterson's budget proposal was unveiled and included major cutbacks for zoos, aquariums, and even the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. So it shouldn't have come as too much of a shock to the Bronx Zoo porcupine when he was let go:

Yesterday there was word of Bronx Zoo funding going the way of the dodo, as Gov. Paterson’s budget proposal promises to eliminate it in two years. The Daily News reports that the cutbacks would also effect "museums across the state — including the New York Botanical Garden and Wave Hill in the Bronx." The Brooklyn Eagle has more today on cutbacks that will hit the borough, where the only good news is that the Prospect Park Zoo won't be effected. The paper reports that with the proposal the BBG's in-house exhibits and educational programs would suffer, and the institute's president said, "We can understand a reasonable reduction, but a 55 percent cut, followed by the elimination of the fund itself, is too much." All in all 76 zoos, botanic gardens and aquariums are on the funding chopping block—and the main problem here is, of course, that “animals don’t stop eating and don’t stop needing care."

Ah, the Second Avenue subway project—that mythical, subterranean Chimera that mayors and governors have spun tales about since time immemorial—is once again in danger of abandonment. With all the talk of service cutbacks as the MTA stares down the barrel of a $1 billion budged deficit, some are wondering if the transit authority should really be spending an estimated $3,000 every minute of every day to dig under Second Avenue at this particular juncture.