After days of intense negotiations, city officials reached a deal late Thursday on a $75 billion budget for the coming fiscal year — but without the 1,000 additional cops that the City Council had been seeking.
Instead, Mayor Bill de Blasio would agree only to bolster the police force by hiring 200 administrative workers — at a cost of $6.5 million annually — to allow an equal number of uniformed officers to move from desk to street assignments.
“We think it’s a big step forward,” de Blasio said at City Hall, noting that police deployment changes and a new NYPD graduating class would add even more personnel.
“It’s going to have a very profound impact on the ground,” the mayor added.
While City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito hailed the move as a victory, other members argued that crime spikes in low-income neighborhoods and a recent rash of shootings called for a bigger boost to the NYPD head count of roughly 35,000.
“We are extremely troubled by this administration’s unwillingness to compromise on this crucial public-safety issue,” said council Minority Leader Vincent Ignizio (R-SI). “The responsibility is now squarely on the shoulders of this administration to continue to keep our communities safe … with a force that is significantly smaller than it was a decade ago.”
With a new, progressive administration and a left-leaning council squaring off at the negotiating table for the first time, this year’s budget talks never came close to the gamesmanship or public saber-rattling that had marked negotiations in the past.
One obvious reason was the lack of belt-tightening that had been mandated in recent years.
The budget deal announced Thursday did not raise taxes, but added roughly $100 million in new programs and services since the executive budget was released in early May, including:
• $6.25 million to provide free lunch to all middle-school students starting this fall.
• $32.5 million to address mental illness and violence at Rikers Island’s correctional facilities.
• $19 million for programs to reduce crime at public housing developments.
De Blasio said the budget’s $1 billion in new spending — mostly to pay for the new teachers contract — was balanced out by roughly $1 billion in new revenues.