PEP, June 2007: With $4.4 billion city surplus, union leaders blast harmful service cutbacks

“We call on the City Council to support closing tax loopholes.”
— Ralph Palladino, 2nd Vice President, Local 1549

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Before the tough negotiations on a final budget, which is due by June 30, DC 37 local leaders weighed in with a second round of testimony on the mayor’s proposed $59 billion city spending plan for fiscal year 2008.

The Big Apple’s economy has rebounded from the devastating terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, after which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg implemented tax hikes and slashed agency spending by $700 million.

This year the Dow Jones stock market index has topped 13,000 and soaring tax revenues have brought the city a record-breaking $4.4 billion budget surplus.

In City Council hearings on the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, many local leaders testified that the windfall provides an opportunity to restore much-needed funding to the public services that DC 37 members provide.

“While I am grateful that the city has increased the budgets of most institutions, all cultural institutions are still below our pre-9/11 city funds,” said Cuthbert Dickenson, president of Local 374. His members include sales and clerical workers, security guards and maintainers, and gardeners at the city’s botanical gardens.

“The decline in city support since 9/11,” Dickenson said, “directly affects the institutions’ ability to support a qualified workforce and forces them to seek outside donations, dip into reserves and raise admission fees.”

“In order to provide the quality six-day-a-week service that the City Council is proposing for public libraries, the libraries need to hire more staff,” said Carol Thomas, president of New York Public Library Guild Local 1930.

Local 768 President Darryl Ramsey told the council, “The budget has a huge surplus, but the Department of Health has still chosen to furlough 21 Dental Assistants to save a mere $81,200.”

Because of the much-publicized rat infestation at a Greenwich Village Taco Bell, Ramsey said, “The rules have changed. Now, in addition to their assigned workloads, Sanitarians have to do more complete inspections and fewer partial inspections based on calls to the city’s 3-1-1 complaint line. They are feeling the pressure of increased work with no additional staff,” he said.

The local is also concerned about the workload impact of enforcing the newly enacted restaurant trans fat ban, which will take effect on July 1.
Ralph Palladino, 2nd vice president of Clerical-Administrative Local 1549, and Moira Dolan, an assistant director of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept., spoke on child care issues.

“Working people must often choose between staying home to care for children and keeping a job,” Palladino said. He asked the council to fund more child care centers like the new facility at Bellevue Hospital, which now has a waiting list.

“We call on the City Council to support closing tax loopholes for banks and reject proposals for tax cuts that benefit only the rich at the expense of city services,” Palladino said.

Additionally, the proposed city budget does not provide the $260 million in city funding that is needed to provide Local 436 Public Health Nurses for the city’s child health clinics and Local 372 School Crossing Guards for summer school programs.

Others who testified included local presidents Judith Arroyo (Local 436), Margalit Susser (1321), and Eileen Muller (1482).