IT’S THE BUDGET
Happiness hard to find as Council
beginning about 6 a.m.
“Clearly the nyc mayor gave orders to clear the weeklong City Hall demonstration this morning ahead of the planned budget meeting today — what a f——-g coward,” wrote a Twitter user.
One person involved in the fray was taken into custody and was expected to be charged with assault on a police officer, authorities said. A second was taken in on suspicion of disorderly conduct, but ultimately let go, sources said.
Earlier, Dominique Tombeau, 18, was arrested at the Surrogate’s Court across from the park about 2:40 a.m. after he allegedly sprayed graffiti on a courthouse statue.
He was charged with making graffiti, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct, cops said.
The clash with cops may have started as a fight between protesters that got out of control when police moved barricades to get at the people involved in the brawl.
Things had settled by 9 a.m., with protesters still occupying City Hall Park.
Scores of protesters took over the park last week, vowing to stay until the mayor defunds the NYPD.
Cries for the defunding came after several clashes between George Floyd protesters and the NYPD in the wake of Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
City lawmakers worked late into Tuesday night to pass an $88.1 billion budget crafted in response to the defining problems of the time: economic fallout from coronavirus and widespread demands for police reform.
Mayor de Blasio touted NYPD budget changes as a win for police reform, though liberal lawmakers and activists dismissed the moves as smoke and mirrors.
“We’re acting on that call for justice,” de Blasio said at a press conference, which came after weeks of protests against police brutality roiled the city and beyond. “It’s time to do the work of reform, to think deeply about where our police have to be in the future.”
The NYPD budget takes some responsibilities out of the department’s hands and includes a variety of costcutting measures.
School safety officers will go from the Police Department to the Education Department, trimming $307.1 million from the NYPD budget, according to a budget document. School crossing guards and homeless outreach services conducted by the police will be transferred out of the NYPD, reducing the department’s expenses by another $46.9 million.
De Blasio said the goal was to “focus on that which [NYPD officers] do particularly well and moving other responsibilities to the civilian side,” adding that school safety and other duties will be “reimagined” under the plan.
Next month’s Police Academy class of 1,163 cadets was canceled, saving $85.6 million.
The budget also counts on reducing police overtime from $523 million that was previously projected to $227 million, according to Melanie Hartzog, director of the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, though similar efforts have faltered in the past.
De Blasio seemed to acknowledge curbing overtime would be a challenge.
“If something absolutely exceptional happens … it’s a whole different discussion when overtime needs go up for very objective reasons,” he said.
Factoring in smaller cuts such as $5 million in canceled spending on new vehicles, lawmakers said they slashed about $1 billion from the NYPD budget — responding to one of the main demands to spring from nationwide protests sparked by the May 25 death of black Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
The budget also reallocates $537 million in “capital” spending from the NYPD to other projects — $450 million for youth recreation centers at public housing buildings and parks, and $87 million for expanded broadband at NYCHA, according to de Blasio.
Activists voiced outrage over the NYPD budget changes, dismissing them as superficial, as word of the mayor’s plan spread over the weekend. Police clashed with protesters camped at City Hall early Tuesday. Video posted online showed officers in riot gear moving barricades and pulling people to the ground. At least three people were arrested at the demonstration, billed as an “Occupy City Hall” protest in the fashion of the Occupy Wall Street movement from 2011.
More than 26 Council members, the minimum number needed to pass the budget, had voted in favor of it as the Daily News went to print. De Blasio was expected to sign it into law after the end of the vote.
Lawmakers who voted against the budget either said the NYPD was not really being changed or were opposed to any reduction in the department’s headcount.
“It’s not a significant defunding,” Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) told The News. “Genuinely transforming our approach to public safety in a way that’s responsive to the movement for black lives … that was not going to be achieved in this budget.”
Council Speaker Corey Johnson sounded a downcast note as he said he wanted deeper NYPD cuts, but tried to build consensus.
“To everyone who is disappointed that we did not go farther … I am disappointed, as well,” the Manhattan Dem said. “But this budget process involves the mayor, who was not budging more than what
we got, and 49 other Council members currently, many of whom were not open or supportive to the kind of cuts that I was pushing for.”
The budget comes as the city faces a staggering $9 billion shortfall in tax revenue, according to de Blasio’s office. Prior to Tuesday’s scheduled vote, de Blasio slashed his initial proposed budget of $95.3 billion to $87 billion. The final budget marks a $1.1 billion increase over that sum.
The mayor recently threatened as many as 22,000 layoffs as the federal government rejected requests for cash bailouts and Albany balked at granting the city borrowing authority.
De Blasio said Tuesday the city may furlough or fire workers in October if it doesn’t get extra funding.
The budget includes reductions to services provided by many city agencies, from the Sanitation Department’s composting program to tree pruning by the Parks Department. There’s also a $65 million cut to the city’s Fair Fares program, which provides halfpriced MetroCards to lowincome New Yorkers, according to de Blasio.
“It was an effective, important program,” he said, noting MTA ridership reached historic lows during the virus outbreak. “The whole concept of the program just got disrupted profoundly by the coronavirus, and we’re not going to see that turn around in the short term.”
The news took Johnson, for whom Fair Fares is a signature program, by surprise. “I don’t know what the mayor was talking about today,” he told reporters.
The budget reduces discretionary and other spending for Council members’ pet projects from $1.1 billion to $700 million, according to Johnson. That means scores of nonprofits that rely on those funds could be left in the lurch, though details were not immediately known.
Still, the cuts do not go far enough, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.
“The fiscal crisis is far from over,” the watchdog group’s President Andrew Rein said in a statement. “The budget for fiscal year 2021 is precariously balanced, and actions taken do not go far enough to shrink large budget gaps in fiscal year 2022 and beyond.”
Spending related to the COVID outbreak was kept intact or boosted, with $450 million allocated to feeding the hungry through mid-2022.
The final budget brings back $115.8 million for summer jobs programs for youths, which de Blasio previously proposed canceling outright. His stance drew an outcry from lawmakers who said the income and productive activity were more important for youngsters than ever.
The Council also brought back $100 million in “Fair Student Funding” for higherneeds pupils and $11.6 million for the “Single Shepherd” program that places guidance counselors at high-needs schools, both of which the mayor had threatened to nix.
Looking ahead — and bracing for anger from activists as he prepares for a mayoral run in 2021 — Johnson called for a “collaborative process” to ensure school safety and the city’s handling of the homeless are reformed.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.