From now through March 24, City Council committees will be holding hearings on the preliminary budget presented by Mayor Bloomberg on Jan. 28. The annual budget gains momentum amidst a civic fog of dismay and uncertainty – dismay over the ongoing chaos in Albany, and uncertainty about how that, and the state's generally poor economy, will affect the city's $63 billion budget.

Council will gather its findings into a report to be delivered by April 8, which should inform the mayor's Executive Budget to be released by April 26.

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Helen Zelon
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Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed budget cuts funding across the board for city agencies and services, but less so at "bedrock" city departments like Police and Fire, where annual reductions of 0.6 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, are called for. But the Department of Education – which educates 1.1 million students and has a budget of $21 billion – faces a 1.5 percent cut in the coming fiscal year, of $113 million.

Incorporating the governor’s budget projections – which anticipate a $1.3 billion gap in state funds for New York City – the mayor put forward a second “grim” contingency plan for the city’s schools, with dramatic staffing cutbacks a probability. If the governor’s budget is approved, local uniformed services may face a much bigger 3.6 percent cut, with other city agencies facing one larger yet, at 7.2 percent. It could mean reducing children’s preventive services by 30 percent – and eliminating funding entirely for 500 soup kitchens and food pantries serving New York City’s neediest residents.

In the mayor's budget, funding for agencies that support children and families has been cut by more than for education, however: Money for the Administration for Children’s Services and the Department of Youth and Community Development have been slashed by about 4 percent each. Projecting forward, these cuts will increase in fiscal 2011, to 4 percent at DOE, 6.8 percent at ACS, and 8 percent at DYCD.

The DOE is the largest single allocation in the city’s overall budget, and as with the city itself, where wages and benefits comprise the greatest segment of annual costs, wages and benefits for the city’s teachers constitute the largest financial burden on the DOE. Gov. Paterson’s austerity measures, which dictate an additional $493 million in education cutbacks for the city’s schools, will result in “devastating effects on essential services,” Bloomberg said – including thousands of layoffs and deep cuts to city services. The cuts also could translate into the loss of 8,500 teaching jobs, which would result in increased class sizes, despite the city’s legal obligations as outlined in the Contracts for Excellence guidelines for improving academic outcomes for the most needy students, including funds for reducing class size in the city’s schools.