$89B budget has fare deal
MAYOR DE BLASIO and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson shook hands on an $89.15 billion budget deal Monday — which includes $106 million for the Fair Fares program to provide MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers.
“When it comes down to it, I thought the Fair Fares proposal was smart, it was fair. We’re going to start with this money,” de Blasio said at a press conference in the City Hall rotunda.
For months, de Blasio had argued the city did not have enough money to pay for the program, which he said should be funded through a dedicated revenue stream for the MTA like a millionaires’ tax. Both he and Johnson said they hoped such a tax could pay for the program in the future, but for now, the city will put up $106 million, get the program up and running and analyze the costs.
“I thought the notion that this was good, it was fair, it was something we could get started now while working on the future, all made sense,” he said. “We obviously had some revenue come in, that helped. But all things considered, it’s a part of the democratic process. I heard how much it was a priority for the Council, and we found a way to do it that I thought made sense.”
The program will provide halfpriced MetroCards for New Yorkers living below the poverty line — like one mother who told her story in the Daily News.
“I want to thank a New Yorker named Shani Rahman,” Johnson said. “There are 800,000 New Yorkers who will be eligible for Fair Fares in January, but her story illustrated in the starkest terms why we need this program. Like so many New Yorkers I was floored when I read her Op-Ed in the Daily News. How is it fair that in the richest city in America, a city with a budget of $89 billion, that a working mom has to beg for a Metro-Card swipe to take her daughter to school? It isn’t right, and it is ending.”
The funding is less than the $212 million the Council sought, but the plan calls for the program to be implemented on Jan. 1, partway through the fiscal year. Any unspent amount will roll over to the next year, Johnson said, and the city will analyze the cost for future years based on how many people sign up.
“This is not a one-time commitment,” Johnson said. “But Fair Fares is not contingent upon that.”
The budget deal also includes $150 million over three years, in the separate capital budget, to increase school accessibility for disabled students — something Johnson became choked up about as he recalled a mother testifying about carrying her child up the stairs at her school.