City agencies told: Find ways to slash budget

City Hall has ordered agencies to draw up plans to trim expenses over the next 18 months as Mayor de Blasio confronts a $3.8 billion budget deficit and dimming hopes that federal aid will plug the gap.

“We’re turning to all city agencies and saying, ‘You’re going to have to find more savings,’ ” de Blasio said at a press conference Tuesday. “What has been put out there initially is simply to get ideas and proposals back from agencies. It’s not the final plan by any stretch.”

De Blasio’s Office of Management and Budget has asked most city agencies to draw up plans to trim their spending over the next six months by 1 percent, and then to come up with additional cuts of 2.5 percent for the next budget cycle, which takes effect in July.

The Police and Correction departments must dig a bit deeper and come up with 3 percent spending reductions for the 2022 budget, while the Department of Education is asked for 2.25 percent reduction.

The Big Apple’s public hospital system and scandal-scarred Housing Authority have been exempted from the reductions.

The city’s finances have been devastated by the pandemic, which has caused revenues from tourism and other industries to flatline.

Hizzoner has been banking on Democrats in Washington to pass a significant aid package for city and state governments, but those efforts have met resistance from Republicans, who run the Senate.

In the interim, he has threatened municipal unions with as many as 22,000 layoffs as he struck deals to delay more than $700 million in retroactive pay and other labor expenses by a year.