Pressure from DC 37 and other unions helped convince legislators to add over $1 billion to the proposed city and state budgets for fiscal year 2005. The funds will provide needed services and restore sharp cuts sought by Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

The $101.3 billion state budget restored $740 million in education aid, blocked Medicaid cuts that would have devastated the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp., and switched responsibility for the costs of the Family Health Plus program to the state.

Grassroots lobby
“Stopping these cutbacks is a tremendous victory for our members,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “DC 37 joined with our labor and community allies, mobilized thousands of members to lobby their elected officials in Albany and urged the public to call and write the governor.”

The union’s efforts paid off, but the City Council failed to provide an anticipated $5.3 million for school clinics, and the State Legislature did nothing to meet a court mandate in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. The CFE decision by the state’s highest court ordered an overhaul of the education aid formula to correct a longstanding injustice that shortchanged New York City schools by millions of dollars. Presiding Judge Leland DeGrasse has now named a nonpartisan panel to propose a solution.

Thousands of DC 37 members bused to Albany this spring and pressed a three-prong campaign for “CFE, HHC and NYC.” The union targeted the “big three” of state government — Gov. George E. Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — with a grassroots postcard campaign focused on the Medicaid cuts.

DC 37 succeeded in convincing the lawmakers to block the proposed Medicaid cuts. In the state assumption of Family Health Plus costs, the city gained $138 million including $60 million apportioned to HHC, of which $22 million will go to long-term care. In late August, the governor vetoed $235 million of the budget improvements for colleges, libraries, health care and after-school programs.

City budget improved
The City Council restored $80.5 million of DC 37’s priorities to the city’s $47.2 billion budget. DC 37 counts among its victories the restoration of $613,000 to hire School Crossing Guards this summer, $2,525,000 for summer school nurses, $12.2 million for child health clinics, $536,000 for school-based health clinics and $279,000 for tuberculosis clinics, $9,006,000 for current child care slots and $10 million for additional slots, $8,207,000 for New York library branches, and $1,830,000 for research libraries, $5,942,000 each for Queens and Brooklyn branches, $10,729,522 for cultural institutions, $7,286,000 for Parks seasonal hires, and $5,425,000 for CUNY Community Colleges.