Ticket slowdown’s $46M budget blow
It’s the high price of the NYPD slowdown.
Feuding between cops and City Hall has already cost the city more than $46 million in lost parking-ticket revenue — staggering losses that could take a bite out of critical programs and services, critics charged Sunday.
“It’s not a natural disaster — this is man made,” said Glen Bolofsky, president of ParkingTicket.com, a ticketfighting service, which crunched the numbers.
Because ticket revenue is accounted for in the city’s budget — $518 million a year, according to a November 2014 Office of Management and Budget report — the specter of a budgetary shortfall has become real.
“There obviously are some financial ramifications,” said Councilman Brad Lander (DBrooklyn).
The drain amounts to more dough than the city lost in ticket revenue to Hurricane Sandy — because the feds eventually reimbursed those millions.
“The city depends on it a lot,” noted a City Council source, who added that rosy propertytax and payrolltax projections might have to make up for the missing ticket revenue.
Sandy’s ravages led to an unintentional 90day slowdown, costing the city $189 million in lost parking-ticket revenue, according to the ParkingTicket.com review.
The recent intentional slowdown — triggered by Mayor de Blasio’s apparent lack of support for cops in the wake of the Eric Gar ner chokehold death — has so far spanned 22 days. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton acknowledged it and ordered cops back to work — after The Post reported a 90 percent dip in ticket writing.
The Post reported exclusively Sunday that a summons catchup blitz has been ordered, and that some cops have been barred from taking vacation and sick days.
“Making threats and moving the department back toward the quotas that initially created the ill will with the community will only make morale among police and the relationship with the community even worse,” said Patrolmen’s Benevolence Association President Pat Lynch.
Ed Mullins, the Sergeants Benevolent Association president, said the real issues are quotas and “dividing the community and police.”
“As a result of these quota policies, I am exploring a tollfree number for members of the public and the NYPD to voice their concerns regarding the abuse of quotas,” he said.
The Mayor’s Office said New Yorkers wouldn’t notice a dip in needed services.
“The administration will continue to ensure that investments in key services and priorities like education and health care will be maintained,” said de Blasio spokesman Phil Walzak, who added City Hall is “encouraged that the NYPD expects arrests and summonses to return to normal levels.”