We must end the city’s annual budget soap opera
You can’t blame New Yorkers for feeling whipsawed. In the last several months the Adams administration has declared a fiscal emergency and dramatic cuts to essential services, then congratulated itself for restoring some — but not all — of those planned reductions.
Did we really need to get ready to have fewer cops, overflowing litter baskets and reduced spending on pre-K, afterschool and other children’s services? Was it necessary to have a dramatic overstatement — and then a recalculation — of the costs of serving the asylum seekers?
Unfortunately, these kinds of theatrics are easy to stage under the city’s current budget process. Blaming bad economic conditions or union intransigence, Bill de Blasio threatened to lay off 22,000 public workers in 2020; in 2011, Mike Bloomberg said he would have to fire some 6,000 teachers and close senior centers; in 1994, Rudy Giuliani warned that 18,000 city workers needed to go to balance the budget.
Yet all these crises were resolved, generally without huge disruptions.
The first act in this telenovela is always the same. As the city is putting together a new budget, it routinely lowballs expected revenue and overestimates planned spending — a strategy pointed out by the Fiscal Policy Institute, among other observers.
Even the conservative Manhattan Institute has noted that “city officials have a track record of purposely underestimating projected revenues during the budget process.”
The result of this kind of budget planning is that every fiscal year begins with a “gap” of billions of dollars. In years with particular fiscal or political challenges, closing the gap that budgeteers have projected inevitably includes proposals to cut back on services, from public safety to health.
In Act Two, as revenue arrives the administration has to figure out what to do with the money it claimed it wouldn’t have. Rather than pay for services this year, the budgeteers use these funds to pay bills that aren’t due for a year or more — usually interest payments on the city’s debt. In the past 11 years, the city has used this tactic to push approximately $50 billion out of one fiscal year and into the future.
In Act Three, as it negotiates the budget with the City Council, the administration grudgingly admits that the projected gap has been closed by unanticipated revenues, supplemented by the heroic measures it has undertaken to cut costs and generate savings. Before June 30 the Council passes the new budget with some small additions it has negotiated. The yawning gap has been transformed into a substantial surplus — more than $5 billion in the last fiscal year — and the curtain comes down on that year’s budget drama.
This is not just a harmless sideshow. It misleads the public, creates distrust, and forces advocates to focus their energies on maintaining current levels of service, bypassing real debates on budget priorities.
While far from the only public service targeted by this manufactured drama, the city’s library systems are a prominent case in point.
Administrations know that libraries are one of the most popular public services and a favorite of Council members. And although everyone admits the importance of the libraries for children and their families, preliminary city budgets routinely freeze or cut support for them as part of “closing the gap.” This year, as part of the mayor’s first gap-closing program, libraries lost Sunday hours; planned future rounds of cuts would also have eliminated Saturday openings.
Every year parents demonstrate, workers organize. Letters pour in from residents who depend on the libraries. The Council spends time and energy negotiating for increased funding — and there is agreement on an amount that the city had always expected to pay. According to the Council’s budget documents, in fiscal 2023, when the budget was finalized, libraries had gained more than $15 million in additional operating funds and $50 million in capital spending; in previous years the annual restorations and additions ranged from $10 million to $33 million.
The central problem is that the current budget process — developed after the city’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s — allows the mayor to set the terms of the debate. The administration unilaterally determines the spending of billions, while local groups and their representatives struggle over the use of millions of dollars.
After nearly 50 years, New York’s budget process badly needs an update to make it more democratic and more responsive to the needs of groups and communities. The mayor recently announced that he has created a panel of outside experts to help guide his administration on budget issues. Their first recommendation should be to ring down the curtain on this annual budget melodrama, and insist that the city make honest projections of future revenues and spending.
Manhattan: I am writing to express my deep gratitude for your thoughtful endorsement of lockdown drill reform in New York (“Overdoing it on safety drills,” editorial, Jan. 6). I am one of the two dads who approached the Brooklyn state legislators. Our story is written up in The Trace and published on the day of the introduction of the bill. We’ve been working on the issue since fall 2021 and are scheduled to visit Albany on Feb. 6. We have communications with numerous governmental offices in NYC and Albany, including the NYPD, NYC Department of Education, New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents. It would be great to be connected to one of your journalists to share developments as they transpire.
I very much appreciated that you made the overall calculations for the total amount of drills, including fire evacuation drills. Numbers were my domain in the reform process and I am quoted in The Hill and Chalkbeat: “If you enter the school system as a 3-year-old, and you exit as an 18-year-old, you will have done 60 lockdown drills.” NBC also covered the issue under the headline: “NY students face up to 60 active shooter drills before graduating.” There’s a push to change that. Shooter drills start with 3-K by the DOE’s own admission.
Thank you for also raising the training issue, which is key. We work with the researchers cited in your text. Your opinion was so well written that I decided to make the journey through the snow and got a hard copy, which is already framed. Robert Murtfeld
Internal sabotage
Staten Island: To Voicer Mary Jane Manger: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (a Trump fan) is having mailboxes removed to make it difficult for anyone to vote by mail. Democrat or Republican, please get out and vote in person for the candidate of your choice. Too much depends on the outcome of the upcoming election. Eileen Zanelli
Unnecessary harshness
Brooklyn: To Voicer Joe C. Wade: Why the vitriol towards Michelle Obama? What did she ever do to you? Last I checked, she has not declared that she plans to run for the White House. I have heard her say on numerous occasions that she is not interested. Your letter is mean and unnecessary. The name-calling is out of line, but I guess you are following in the footsteps of your deranged cult leader. June Lowe
Trumpian rhetoric
North Branford, Conn.: To Voicer Joe C. Wade: I believe that Donald Trump used your name when he wrote a sick letter bearing your signature. Check your derangement — good advice.
Stephen Syrotiak
Amped up
Ozone Park: Sen. Tim Scott endorsed Trump like he was the winner of the WWE belt. Trump’s simple-minded approach to a presidential nomination paid off. His supporters confuse the rahrah motivation to an enthusiastic, self-congratulatory persona for a job well done. Look at the Jan. 6 video. That’s all I need to not
consider Trump for anything but a rabble-rouser. Ray Hackinson
Blasé exposé
Whitestone: Yesterday the New York Post printed an explosive story that deserves the Pulitzer Prize for informing America that Hugh Hefner was only interested in having sex with women many years younger than he. Especially his last wife Crystal, who was only 26 when he was 86. Such groundbreaking journalism was on the front page. Who would’ve thought that Hefner didn’t want to have intellectual conversations with women young enough to be his great-granddaughters. And cameras in the bedroom? Throw in the Scripps Howard award! Thank God the editors of the Post are not wasting time covering factual evidence of all of Donald Trump’s crimes. Or his demented statement claiming that Nikki Haley refused 10,000 troops when she was in charge of the Capitol. Perhaps the Post can do a multi-edition story on the Revolutionary War, including diagrams of the airports Trump claims were so bigly important in helping defeat the British.
Robert LaRosa Sr.
No fair shake
Bronx: Thanks for your interesting editorial (“Ticket punched,” Jan. 20). It’s difficult to understand how the Daily News can complain about police officers providing friends and relatives with courtesy cards that might give them the benefit of the doubt if stopped for a low-level violation when it advocates for extreme criminal justice reforms.
Prosecutors and judges cut deals with violent criminals all the time. When parole boards release cop killers, they send a message that devalues the lives and service of officers. While prosecutors, judges and parole boards are immune from consequences for going easy on a criminal who commits more crimes after being given a break, cops can be sued personally for doing their jobs. It’s tough for the Daily News to whine about cops playing by other rules when it keeps supporting the deck being stacked against them. Charles T. Compton
Executive decision
Forest Hills: In his column “Adams’ double veto is a double failure for him” (Jan. 21), Harry Siegel argues that Mayor Adams should have gone along to get along and approved two City Council bills that the mayor strongly disagrees with. Adams has presented a strong, well-reasoned basis to veto the police reporting and ban on solitary confinement micro-managing legislative endeavors. New Yorkers are fortunate to have a mayor who acts not for reasons of political expediency, as urged by Siegel. John O’Reilly
Definition of
Yonkers: Incompetence (noun): Inability to do something successfully; ineptitude, e.g. Mayor Adams. Tom Deering
Solutions exist
East Meadow, L.I.: We really don’t, or shouldn’t, have an upcoming crisis whereby Social Security funds will be exhausted in 2034. There are a number of simple fixes for this issue. Implement a progressive tax so that higher earners are taxed at a rate higher than the 6.2% we all pay. Or remove the artificial earnings cap, set at $168,000 for 2024, so that all earnings are taxed. The way it works now is regressive, with workers earning $168,000 or less paying on every dollar while high earners don’t. Even if earnings beyond $1 million are taxed at a lower rate, say 2 or 3%, it’d still be a windfall for the fund. And the Social Security tax needs to be applied on gross earnings while not being eligible for any deductions or write-offs. Sounds pretty simple, but do our elected officials have the will? Or is this issue just another political boogeyman our politicians like to use come election time?
Greg Hecht
Mischaracterized
Flushing: In addition to ignoring the fact that the cowardly Hamas terrorists hide in tunnels beneath mosques, schools and hospitals, a scattered-brained Voicer calls the late Golda Meir a “terrorist.” Would a terrorist say, and I quote: “Someday we may forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we will never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”
Charles Tal
Enough
Swarthmore, Pa.: Israel is currently engaged in a retaliatory military response to the Hamas atrocities inflicted on them on Oct. 7. Now, almost three months and more than 25,000 Palestinian deaths later, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must ask himself a question: When is enough enough? That is, how much pain and suffering should the Palestinians bear and what can fairly be considered a “proportionate response”? It feels fair to question whether or not Netanyahu’s decision will be primarily based on legitimate military objectives or if it will be determined by his internal political needs. The destruction wrought by the Israeli military on Gaza and its people has been devastating. Further retribution may achieve short-run security but will surely plant a seed of long-run hatred for which Israel will suffer a future payback. Bottom-line, Mr. Netanyahu: Enough is enough. Ken Derow
Not scheduled
Staten Island: What is it with your sports department? Do you have a problem with UConn women’s basketball? You never show their schedule in the sports calendar. Why is that? Do you have a problem with Geno Auriemma and the team? On Saturday, you listed San Jose State at San Diego State! Really!
Michael Modafferi
Favorite feature
Deltona, Fla.: I have been buying the Daily News since I was in third grade. I will be turning 66 next month. I enjoyed reading the Justice Story every Sunday. I miss reading them. The Justice Story that you have is over a month old. I would love to see fresh Justice Stories on Sundays.
Nilsa Rivera