Lack of Capitol
Blaz: $89B budget inflated by Albany cutbacks
MAYOR DE BLASIO presented an $89.06 billion executive budget proposal Thursday — a budget that has grown a billion dollars since his February plan as the city faces down what he called “a bad year” in the state Capitol.
“We had a bad year in Albany, in fact the worst year since 2011,” de Blasio told reporters Thursday in the City Hall Blue Room.
The city was forced to make up for $530 million it either was forced to give to the state government or was expecting to get from it and did not, de Blasio said.
That included $254 million the city put up for the MTA’s subway rescue plan; state education funding that came in at $140 million less than the city had projected; and $108 million the city will need to spend to implement what it called the “unfunded mandate” of the governor’s initiative to raise the age of criminality.
“To put it in perspective, about 25% of all new city spending in this budget is because of the need to compensate for cuts and cost shifts that came out of the Albany budget — so about one in four dollars new in this budget is to compensate for those actions,” de Blasio.
Gov. Cuomo’s office disputed de Blasio’s numbers.
“Shockingly, the mayor’s math is wrong,” spokesman Rich Azzopardi said, adding that the city would receive more education aid than it had last year, and that the state’s contributions to the MTA’s capital plan “dwarfs all his other complaints.”
De Blasio also sounded caution about the potential fiscal unknowns of Cuomo’s executive order to install a monitor at the New York City Housing Authority, though this budget does not account for it yet.
“We see a very challenging and potentially dangerous element of it in terms of our budget,” de Blasio said. “There’s some very open-ended language in the executive order which could result in the city having to incur a substantial additional cost that cannot go through our budget process, that the Council doesn’t get to vote on, that I as mayor have no control over nor does the city controller.”
Azzopardi noted the state has promised $550 million for NYCHA — and said the city could face worse financial outlays thanks to a federal investigation.
“The NYCHA order will be adjusted once the federal investigation of the city concludes to see if he is culpable in the NYCHA malfeasance and what penalty the city will be forced to pay on his behalf,” he said. “That is the great unknown.”
Not all of the budget hike — more than a billion over the mayor’s February proposal, and $3.86 million more than the budget adopted last June — can be traced to Albany.
The executive budget for fiscal 2019 adds another $159 million in homeless services — on top of an $150 million addition that was included in the preliminary verison of the budget released in February.
De Blasio said the costs were related to his plan to get the homeless out of cluster apartments — which has resulted in putting them in costly hotels — and because of a spike in single men coming into shelter.
And in the separate expense budget, the city is earmarking $103 million to roll out 3,000 new permanent security barriers to protect pedestrians from cars — which comes after October’s terrorist attack on a West Side Highway bike path. AS THE city’s schools struggle with a crisis of homeless students, Mayor de Blasio is setting aside more money to fund needed services. A record 111,562 city students were homeless or living in temporary housing in the 2016-17 school year, up almost 67% from 66,931 in the 2009-10 school year. Homeless students are more likely to have behavior issues, and they trail their peers in academics and attendance. In his 2019 city budget, unveiled Thursday, de Blasio said he would increase funding for dedicated programs to help homeless students from $10.2 million in 2018 to $11.9 million in 2019 — an increase of nearly 17%. Education Department officials said the money will pay for 12 new staffers, including 10 social workers. Public schools Chancellor Richard Carranza vowed to support the city’s homeless students. “Meeting the academic and social-emotional needs of students in temporary housing is a priority of mine,” Carranza said. “This increased investment in social workers is a critical step in addressing the needs of this unique population, and we remain laser-focused on this work.” THE CITY will spend $23 million on anti-bias training for city educators — a whopping increase in such funding that follows Daily News stories that exposed shocking instances of racism in public schools.
In February, The News uncovered allegations of a white Bronx teacher who stepped on a black student during a lesson on slavery, a Bronx principal who barred black history lessons and a Park Slope PTA group that used blackface imagery in invitations to a gala.
The stories fueled demonstrations citywide from activists who had pushed for antibias training for months with no response from the city.
Now, the city budget Mayor de Blasio unveiled Thursday includes the $23 million for four years’ worth of antibias training — up from the $660,000 allotted last year.
The city has allocated $4.8 million for implicit bias and culturally responsive training in fiscal year 2019, which begins July 1. The programs’ budget also includes $6.9 million in 2020, $6.2 million in 2021 and $5.5 million in 2022.
“This is a real step forward for serving New York City’s kids and families,” said schools Chancellor Richard Carranza (below). “Culturally responsive teaching meets our kids and families where they are, and tailors the way we teach and serve our kids to their unique backgrounds and the experiences they bring into the classroom.”
NYC Coalition for Educational Justice Coordinator Natasha Capers said thousands of parents worked hard to bring racial justice to city classrooms.
“We look forward to working with Chancellor Carranza and NYC educators to fulfill the promise of this initiative, and begin the important work of diversifying curriculum and course offerings as well,” Capers said.