New York City’s public pools will be dry this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday as he outlined a staggering $6 billion worth of budget cuts caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Popular daycare and after school programs for working parents are also on the chopping block, Hizzoner’s new $89.3 billion spending plan revealed.
“Our top priorities are simple: we will keep people safe, protect their health, make sure there is a roof over their head and that food is on their table,” de Blasio said. “There is no cost too great to keeping New Yorkers protected, but Washington must also step up. New Yorkers deserve nothing less than the full support of our federal government in this time of crisis.”
De Blasio’s latest budget projects that New York City will lose an estimated $7.4 billion in projected tax revenues over just a 16 month period — $2.2 billion coming from the last four months of the 2020 budget year alone — as income, hotel and sales tax revenues dry up because of the economic shutdown.
In response, de Blasio is enacting the first wide-scale spending cuts of his administration, some of it from canceling popular summer programs in city parks and city schools.
The cuts include savings from shutting down the Parks Department’s pools for the summer — for a savings of $12 million.
Also cut are popular Department of Youth and Community Development programs — including BEACON, which provides more than 90 community centers for children; School’s Out New York City’s sports, arts and youth leadership programs for middle schoolers; and Cornerstones, which provides education, sports and job training for residents of public housing
The administration had already revealed plans to zero-out the nation’s largest municipal youth employment program, earning widespread criticism.
Some of de Blasio’s signature initiatives are also facing cuts, including delaying the rollout of the 3K pre-kindergarten program to three new school districts, a move that officials hope will save $43 million alone.
It’s a dramatically smaller budget proposal than the $95.3 billion budget de Blasio rolled out in January, which was already constrained by the city’s fight with Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the future of the Empire State’s Medicaid program.
And it’s $3.5 billion smaller than the $92.8 billion budget approved last year for 2020.
Hizzoner and Council Speaker Corey Johnson must pass a budget before July 1.
Source: Read Full Article