He’s had his share of run-ins with Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, but Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday he’d have to think “long and hard” about supporting a referendum to abolish the office.
“I don’t think it is the biggest problem in our government structure today,” said the mayor, who sliced funding to the public advocate by 40 percent, by far the largest cut of any elected official.
“Does it provide a function, and is that function worth the cost? That’s a separate issue.”
City Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill yesterday to put the fate of the office before the voters in a referendum next year.
Felder called the post, which received $2.8 million a year before the mayor’s reduction, a waste of taxpayers’ money.