Blaz wants $2.5B more for budget, says blame state

Mayor de Blasio proposed an unprecedented $95.3 billion budget on Thursday — a nearly 3% bump and $2.5 billion more than the spending plan for 2020 that was adopted last summer.

The preliminary budget for fiscal year 2021, which begins July 1, doesn’t include funding for any new big programs or policy proposals as the city girds for spending cuts because of the state’s massive $6 billion budget gap.

The mayor’s office said the state budget hole could lead to “significant cuts” in city spending that would hit the public hospital system the hardest. The state’s budget gap includes a $4 billion Medicaid deficit and is the largest to occur under de Blasio.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” de Blasio said during a City Hall briefing.

Gov. Cuomo suggested during his annual address last week that local counties and municipalities like the city will see their share of Medicaid costs go up as part of state efforts to curtail spending and restructure its handling of the program.

De Blasio said Cuomo’s remarks were “confusing,” stressing Medicaid is staterun and that the city doesn’t control how the program is managed.

“How the mayor can claim he is reacting to cuts from the state before the state has even proposed a budget is spreading the political cream cheese too thick even for a toasted bagel,” Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever said.

De Blasio also pointed out that the MTA, a statecontrolled entity, has demanded $3 billion more for capital upgrades and $100 million annually for its paratransit service.

“The challenge is from Albany,” de Blasio said. “It’s all coming from one place, the numbers are huge. Two state run entities — Medicaid and the MTA.”

Comptroller Scott Stringer, the city’s chief financial officer, said the state budget gap is why he wants “to see a more robust savings plan.”

“Spending continues to rise at an alarming rate,” Stringer said.

The preliminary spending plan for fiscal year 2021 is about 2.7% more than the $92.8 billion budget for 2020 adopted by the City Council last June. At the same time, city revenues for 2021 are expected to grow just 2%, a reflection of the slowing U.S. economy.

Two-thirds of the budget increase — or $1.6 billion — is due to labor settlements and worker benefits. Debt service accounts for $270 million and another $256 million is for charter school costs and special education mandates. The state’s recently enacted reforms to discovery and bail, which require a thousand new city jobs, will also cost another $175 million.

But administration officials stressed that the budget’s growth was lower than in previous years, with little in the way of new spending on city programs.

The de Blasio administration is anxiously waiting for Cuomo to present the state budget next week, when officials will have a better sense of how the deficit will impact the city and health care offered at public hospitals.

“It would mean less personnel, it would mean longer wait times,” the mayor said, adding later, “There’s some really intense things we’d have to do.”