Another round of severe budget cuts is just around the corner, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday, less than 24 hours after announcing plans to ax 6,200 city employees.
Bloomberg said the $1.6 billion in savings he extracted from city agencies, largely through layoffs, still leaves a $2.4 billion deficit for the next fiscal year. The blueprint for filling that fiscal hole is due in January, when the preliminary budget for 2012 has to be presented.
“So, somehow, in January, we’ve got to come up with $2 billion more in tax revenues, fee revenues, that sort of thing, or cuts, or what’s more likely is some combination,” he said on his weekly WOR radio show.
Union leaders were less confrontational than usual as the mayor prepared to fire their members.
Sanitation union chief Harry Nespoli, who heads the Municipal Labor Committee, pointed out that the city isn’t getting much help from the state and federal governments.
Still, he declared, “the projected reduction of services is unacceptable.”
Norman Seabrook, president of the correction officers union, called for a meeting of all unions leaders to find alternatives, such an entry tax for tourists.
“There’s only one New York,” Seabrook said. “Where else are they going to go?”