Gov. Andrew Cuomo engaged in a little fat shaming Wednesday — over New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bloated city budget.
Asked about de Blasio’s announcement earlier in the day of one-week staff furloughs including himself and his oft-repeated threat of widespread municipal layoffs to shore up the Big Apple’s balance sheet, Cuomo said there’s “a lot of waste” in the Big Apple’s budget.
“I’m saying layoffs are the last thing you want to do. They’re the last option, especially in New York City where you have so many problems. We have a homeless problem. We have a crime problem. The city is dirty,” said Cuomo, landing several punches at his downstate rival’s expense.
“Layoffs are the last option, but in a $90 billion budget that the city has, I’m sure there’s a lot of waste that you can find and that’s what you would need to do before you would go to borrow or lay off anyone.”
De Blasio and the City Council inked a 2021 budget deal that pared-back city spending from an expected $95 billion to $88 billion — including controversial cuts to the NYPD, as well as the Parks and Sanitation departments.
That package included $1 billion in unspecified labor savings — and with union negotiations seemingly going nowhere, Hizzoner has warned that 22,000 municipal employees may get pink slips unless he gets federal aid or state permission to borrow.
Independent government watchdogs say there is something to Cuomo’s critique, arguing that de Blasio focused too deeply on cutting program expenses while failing to tackle the city’s structural costs.
“We have a major multi-year fiscal crisis, the mayor has talked about borrowing and layoffs when he has other options and he needs to exercise those other options,” said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission.
Rein’s CBC published an analysis that shows the city could easily find $1 billion in savings from trimming the city’s generous employee healthcare programs, consolidate fringe benefits administered by each union and tweaking decades-old work rules.
A simple Italian solution to nyc 's clowns is to give g ristori carte blance for treating hunan beings that nyc and its clown doctors and researchers cannot. see pubmed.org ristori+ bcg. nether of the bloat boys has any appreciation for science or art or even the work of the great white eoman from boston, faustmanlab.org, uspto.gov inventor search faustman, eho says ristori is king , not them, because hhis work is useful, saves or improves lives, and is inexpensive
andrew cuomo and the mayor are of the quality of povo locs, mr singh's, famous restaurant that operated briefly at the carle place branch of nassau otb having caused a well liked italian restaurant to be displaced for political ends or worse.
“He needs to work with his commissioners to have efficiencies to downsize the workforce over time,” Rein added. “They adopted a balanced budget this year and then the mayor came back two months later saying we did not achieve what we promised — and we have a bigger problem next year.”
Cuomo did not mention his own financial predicament as Albany faces a projected $30 billion budget hole over the next two years.
The state Division of Budget said in August that local governments could see state funding for health, education and other key services slashed by as much as 20 percent unless federal aid arrives.
The budget passed by state lawmakers during the spring gave Cuomo significant authority to borrow as much as $11 billion and make unilateral cuts to state programs as the coronavirus pandemic erupted.
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
De Blasio, City Hall staff to be furloughed for a week amid budget crunch
City Hall, De Blasio staff to be furloughed for a week amid budget crunch
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the nearly 500 employees dedicated to his office will take one week of unpaid leave as the Big Apple desperately tries to shore up its balance sheet amid a new bid for budget aid.
The mandatory furloughs are expected to save less than $1 million but may build pressure on the city’s labor unions to come to terms with City Hall on the $1 billion in cuts de Blasio needs to balance his 2021 budget.
It also comes as de Blasio has struggled to convince President Trump and lawmakers in Washington to provide federal aid for the Big Apple’s coronavirus-caused budget crunch — or to convince Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers in Albany to provide the emergency borrowing authority to balance the books if help from the feds doesn’t arrive.
“It is with pain that I say they and their families will lose a week’s pay, but it’s something they have to do, it’s something I have to do,” de Blasio told reporters during his daily press briefing Wednesday.
“It was not a decision I made lightly,” he added. “It is the right thing to do at this moment in history.”
De Blasio’s longtime chief of staff, Emma Wolfe, told City Hall employees in an email that they would be required to take the five unpaid days off between October and March.
Hizzoner said that he would work during his unpaid week, but it was unclear if other senior members of his administration would be expected to do the same.
A spokeswoman for the administration said that senior officials could volunteer their time but would not be expected to come in, while lower-level staff would be barred from working.
The coronavirus pandemic caused tax revenues and other government funding streams to plummet by an estimated $9 billion.
Hizzoner’s latest budget banked on $1 billion in unspecified savings labor savings to close the gap — but there’s been seemingly little progress in talks between City Hall and municipal labor unions.
That’s left de Blasio beseeching the feds for aid, the state for emergency lending authority — and threatening to lay off as many as 22,000 city employees unless he can score a financial lifeline.
Only the Police Department has been excluded from the layoffs, which would hit the city’s firefighting, EMS and sanitation ranks.
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