The city has come into some extra cash that will ease the city’s budget crunch this year, Mayor Bloomberg said.
“The news today I think is reasonably good … as good as it’s been in a long time,” Bloomberg said Thursday as he presented his 12th and final $69.8 billion budget plan after three terms in City Hall. “The city is doing well.”
The city has taken in an extra $800 million this year in capital gains taxes above what was predicted as well as about $200 million more than expected as a result of corporate tax audits, the mayor said.
Those funds will help offset some unexpected costs and help make up for the $1 billion in revenue the city lost out on when a court blocked a plan to sell 2,000 new taxi medallions for special cabs to serve the outer boroughs.
Now, the mayor expects just $300,000 from a smaller medallion sale, he said.
The new windfall is enough to avoid major new budget cuts in the fiscal year that starts this summer but the mayor plans to move forward with most of the cuts spelled out in his preliminary budget in January including plans to cut 20 fire companies and eliminate after-school and day care programs for as many as 47,000 children.
What won’t be necessary, city officials said, are plans to slash up to 1,800 teaching positions through attrition.
Those cuts were initially put into the budget because the city lost out on more than $240 million in state funds when it failed to reach a teacher evaluation deal with its teachers union before a January deadline.
City officials initially thought those education cuts would affect the city’s annual cut of state funds but the state budget this year had enough money for city schools that Bloomberg was able to take the teacher cuts off the table.
Still, Bloomberg warned that much larger cuts — or painful tax hikes — are lurking for the city in coming years in the face of ballooning union benefit costs and the threat that city employees who have been working without contracts for years will expect retroactive raises when their unions finally cut a deal with the city.
“Until we make meaningful reforms to our healthcare and fringe benefit programs, the services that have dramatically improved the quality of life for New Yorkers will be left to … compete for a smaller and smaller share of the city’s budget,” Bloomberg said.
Already, Bloomberg’s office projects budget shortfalls of $2.2 billion and $1.9 billion in the fiscal years that begin in 2014 and 2015.
And that’s without retroactive raises for union workers that Bloomberg said could wreak havoc on future budgets.
Bloomberg said retroactive raises aren’t possible without “dramatically raising taxes.”
Though nearly all city employees are currently working without a contract, he noted that most workers still see annual pay bumps from raises that go to employees as they gain more experience and seniority.
Bloomberg bristled when he was asked about proposals from mayoral candidates, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, to hire more cops in the future.
“You gotta decide,” he said. “Do you want a teacher? Do you want a cop?”
Adding more employees, he said, would require a tax increase.
“The next mayor is going to have to face the fact that our expenses keep going up and the public doesn’t want to pay for it,” he said.
But the mayor continued to insist he won’t make an endorsement anytime soon.
“I should stay out of this race, and at the end, decide if I want to endorse somebody,” he said — though he did manage to lavish some praise on Quinn, his close ally, noting he now needs to negotiate the budget with the City Council.
“I’m confident that with the great leadership of Speaker Quinn … We will come up with a balanced budget on time,” Bloomberg said.
Council has until the end of June to negotiate and approve the budget.
tmoore@nydailynews.com
