A Warning From the Council

Whenthe NewYork City Council attacks you for spending too much and saving too little, you can be pretty sure you’ve gone way overboard. But it’s a safe bet that Mayor de Blasio won’t listen.

The council’s never been known for fiscal caution (except perhaps for a few years under Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., two decades back). Today’s members want more spending on their own pet projects, like school lunches.

But some prime voices are now raising alarms. Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, joined by Finance Committee Chairwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland and Minority Leader Steven Matteo, last week warned that City Hall isn’t socking away enough cash reserves, even as spending continues to spike.

That leaves New York vulnerable to an economic downturn and a falloff of tax revenue, as well as to cuts in federal aid. And all three could be coming. Spending under de Blasio’s new budget is set to rise 5.2 percent, well above the city’s 4.7 percent rate of economic growth. (And we still don’t have a price tag on his proposal to expand universal pre-K to 3-year-olds.)

Meanwhile, the council critics note that cash reserves fall short of the level (12 percent to 18 percent of total spending) recommended by fiscal experts.

All this comes as the Citizens Budget Commission calculates that the city employee head count will have grown 10.5 percent under de Blasio, to a record high 328,484 positions. (The mayor now says he’ll partly freeze hiring.) That soaring payroll also comes with a lot of hidden costs down the road for pensions and health care.

None of this is new, of course — we’ve been warning about the same problems ever since the mayor produced his preliminary budget back in January and highlighting the rapid rise in city spending throughout the de Blasio era.

Of course, this is not the first mayor to prefer spending money now rather than socking enough away in the city’s rainy-day fund. The game has led to fiscal crises large and small.

City Hall acknowledges the “risks and uncertainties” ahead but urges New Yorkers to trust the mayor’s “careful approach.”

We’d be more reassured by more cash being deposited and less being spent.