Mayor Bill de Blasio announced billions in budget cuts today (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
April 16, 2020 By Allie Griffin
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today that he plans to slash billions of dollars from the city’s budget for the 2021 fiscal year that begins July 1.
He has proposed cutting $2.7 billion in funding to ease a loss of tax revenue that the city estimates to be $7.4 billion over the remainder of this fiscal year and the next — a number de Blasio called “a horrifying figure.”
The new executive budget will be $89.3 billion, he announced — $6 billion less than the initial budget he proposed in January and $3.4 billion less than the budget for the current fiscal year.
The budget will focus on funding initiatives that keep people safe and healthy– particularly programs that house and feed residents, de Blasio said.
Many programs will be cut, including summer programs for children. The city’s public pools will be shut saving $12 million– and public beaches are likely to be closed too. However, the pool closures stem from the need to stop large gatherings and ensure social distancing, the mayor said.
The mayor called the budget cuts tough and painful, but said “they had to be done.”
“Things that we would love to focus on in peacetime, we don’t get to focused on in wartime,” de Blasio said of the pandemic.” And this in effect is wartime.”
He said the city would also be pulling money from its budget reserves to counter the revenue loss.
Still, the mayor called on the federal government to help New York City cover the budget gap — asking for the $7.4 billion the city expects to lose.
New York City has received $1.4 billion from the federal government already — a small number, the mayor said, in comparison to $58 billion bailout of the airline industry.
“How about bailing out the nation’s largest City? How about bailing out the epicenter of this crisis where people have been suffering?” de Blasio pleaded.
“We’re still waiting,” he added.
He said he spoke to President Donald Trump yesterday and asked him to remember his hometown in its time of need.
“I made clear to the president that his hometown needs him,” de Blasio said of the commander-in-chief, who hails from Queens.
“If President Trump raises his voice, the Republican Senate will follow period,” he said. “Haven’t heard his voice yet, I want to give him an opportunity to do the right thing. So, President Trump, here’s my appeal to you, help us back on our feet.”
The budget will be finalized in June before it takes effect on July 1.
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11 Comments
Make them tell us they’re here.
Virginia is a blue state, has been for the last couple of elections.
Sure, he’s an NYC resident who lives in a golden tower with his name on it.
And SURE, NYC is the epicenter of the virus outbreak.
But the president’s priority should definitely be encouraging millions of Americans in Virginia to go outside without masks and hold large gatherings during a pandemic.
This means no garbage pickup. Watch out for the rats.
800 million bucks squandered by his wife and that was only one of many disaster projects.
Meanwhile he’s tweeting his support for…Virginia? I guess he doesn’t care about the lives of the middle class in blue states.
What a surprise? The whino mayor with his champagne socialist spending who in good times saved not one dime for a rainy day. Instead he blew up NYC govt spending by 20% with his first budget alone, needlessly saddled us with 33,000 additional employees over 7 years and wasted $1B alone on his wife’s shady Thrive boondoggle is now demanding a handout from the Federal government!!? This after telling the president he was wasn’t welcome in NYC. What a joke. Who needs those 40-50K Amazon jobs now? If this pandemic bankrupts NYC make no mistake it will be largely only thanks to the solid foundation of fiscally profligate waste he and his ilk pioneered for years in advance. Bikelanes to bankruptcy….
Is that why you voted for the billionaire game show host that flies his second wife to his mansion in Florida on his personal airline?
Now he’s telling American’s that COVID is a “liberal hoax” and that people should “liberate” themselves from quarantine!
That upsets you too right? I mean if you were THAT hypocritical everything you said means nothing…
Not a word about pensions or government workers getting fired……just close the pools
No one will want to visit or live in NYC until there is a vaccine. I fear what the next couple of months will be like for us.
Can’t send a boy to do a man’s Job, Cry me a River Di Gangster