Public Employee Press

$75B budget: no layoffs, many improvements

The $75 billion budget that Mayor de Blasio and the City Council delivered on time in June marks a significant shift in focus to public services by allocating funds for public housing, pre-kindergarten, youth jobs, and ending some wasteful outside contracts.

This year the hearings leading to the annual city budget dance were filled with moves that were more Fred and Ginger and less Sharks versus Jets.

DC 37 Local 1549 welcomed the $6.5 million budget allocation for hiring 200 Administrative Aides in the Police Dept. (see story page 7), and a recall of the wasteful $50 million 311 contract with King Teleservices that "perpetuates poverty wages and snatches civil service career opportunities from public employees," said 2nd Vice President Ralph Palladino.

"The time is right. The city has a surplus and fiscal watchdogs have said our city is on target to take in more revenue than anticipated," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. "It's time to expand public services and its corps of civil servants and end wasteful outsourcing. We need more transparency, accountability and control."

At hearings earlier that month, DC 37 leaders said agencies are overrun with temporary and WEP workers but need qualified civil servants.

Local 371 said community and senior centers in New York City Housing Authority are slated to shutter and asked City Council to keep open these centers that are lifelines to seniors and youth.

Leaders of locals 374, 1482, 1321, and 1930 called for more library staff and restoration of six-day-a-week service.

The overall city budget increased by $1 billion and includes $15.5 million for the Parks Dept. to hire 200 Gardeners, 75 PEP Officers and maintenance and security staff. It funds after school pilot programs for middle-schoolers; $41 billion to preserve and build 200,000 affordable housing units; an additional $70 million for NYCHA's security and maintenance backlog; $6 million for anti-gun violence initiatives, and $43 million for the Vision Zero traffic initiative to decrease pedestrian fatalities.

But it stops short of taxing the rich to pay their fair share. Local 768 President Fitz Reid noted that almost half the city's 8.4 million residents, and 36 percent of men of color, are living at or below the poverty level. This year's budget shows the mayor is taking steps "to end the terrible neglect of poor and working families perpetuated by his predecessors," he said.