City fear over $lash defense
CITY COUNCIL members voiced fears about the city’s readiness to deal with possible impending budget cuts from the Trump administration as they pressed Mayor de Blasio’s budget director for more details on next year’s spending plan.
“It’s alarming that he doesn’t know the answers,” Council Finance Committee Chairwoman Julissa Ferreras said Thursday after more than three hours of testimony by budget director Dean Fuleihan.
Federal cuts were not taken into account in the $84.7 billion preliminary budget, Fuleihan said, but he noted that the city has built up reserves and savings to prepare for the worst.
“We actually were extremely cautious,” he said, noting that the budget contains $1.1 billion in savings with another $500 million expected in the coming months, and the city has $5.25 billion in total reserves.
“Those don’t sound like we don’t know the numbers. They sound very much like we know the numbers,” he said.
But Ferreras noted the size of the budget has also ballooned — up $2.6 billion from the plan passed last year, and more than 20% from before de Blasio took office.
“They talk about historic savings — we also have historic spending,” she said, arguing the city is in worse shape on savings than it was going into the Great Recession.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said cuts could hit Medicaid, food stamps, job training, public housing, senior services, Head Start and community development block grants — before even accounting for Trump’s threat to yank funding for sanctuary cities. “That’s very serious,” she said.
City Controller Scott Stringer said at least a billion dollars in additional reserves are needed. “We’re not as ready as we need to be,” he said. “Our reserves are in a weaker position than they should be.”
Meanwhile, pols questioned how the city would pay for Mayor de Blasio’s homelessness plan, which includes 90 new shelters.
The budget projects homelessness funding will drop next year to $1.4 billion, but the Independent Budget Office says that’s lowballed by at least $190 million.
“There’s a lot of details that are missing,” Mark-Viverito said. “You know there are going to be costs attached to it . . . I’m not understanding why something that is so important would not be included.”