Greener eyeshades

Is the free-spending, hiring-happy de Blasio administration ready for a potential economic downturn? A couple of admittedly small clouds on the horizon force a reality check. City Council analysts noted a decline in tax revenues between April and August — down 0.9% from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, September unemployment jumped to 5.8% — up from 5.2% that month a year ago — even as the share of the population in the labor force fell.

Perspective: Tax revenues are still quite healthy, and unemployment is still well below the 7.5% average over the last decade. Private-sector jobs remain close to an all-time high.

Still, it’s the job of city budget wonks to gird obsessively for the bad times even when the good are rolling. That’s not happening nearly enough.

Instead of being on notice to demonstrate efficiency, agencies have been encouraged to spend. The city’s hiring is surging to an anticipated target of 323,000 by next summer — well above the prerecession record set in 2008.

As the Citizens Budget Commission noted earlier this year, the de Blasio Citywide Savings Program is for a paltry 0.6% of city-funded spending.

Reserves are at a record level in strict dollars — $5 billion — but not as a percentage of a budget growing by leaps and bounds. That denominator, partially driven up by the necessary settlement of expired labor contracts, has risen by $12 billion in the three years since the mayor took office, $2.7 billion in just the last year.

Besides, the largest chunk of reserve cash is the Retiree Health Benefits Trust. Given the city’s $70 billion liability for future retiree benefits, the mayor should keep the trust’s funds off the table in the event of a financial shortfall.

De Blasio’s far from running the budget headlong off a cliff. But in a volatile economy — hell, we could even get a President Trump — that’s hardly the standard to hold him to.