Read his lips: No new taxes — or cops.
Just months after getting slapped down by Albany on his plan to tax the rich, Mayor de Blasio on Thursday boasted that he had balanced his first executive budget without the need to raise property taxes.
De Blasio’s $73.9 billion plan also doesn’t contain any provisions for hiring 1,000 more cops, as called for by the City Council.
“I know that’s a heartfelt request on their part, but the fact is that thank God the NYPD is achieving what it is achieving with the resources it has now,” he said.
And a day after Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Queens) was indicted for allegedly stealing pork-barrel grants, de Blasio threw down the gauntlet over the council’s continued support of slush-fund “member items” for pet projects.
“I do think it’s time to end member items. I think that’s the smart path going forward,” the mayor said.
De Blasio outlined plans to scale back the “punitive, arbitrary fines” levied by the Health Department and the Department of Consumer Affairs, which he said were “really undermining small business and the ability of small business to create jobs.”
His budget — subject to negotiations with the council — calls for an 8 percent decrease in revenues from those agencies, a loss of $70 million.
De Blasio said the pending 10 percent pay-raise deal over seven years with the city’s teachers had set a “pattern” for contract negotiations with more than 150 unions.
He also touted an agreement with the Municipal Labor Council to raid $1 billion from a reserve health-insurance fund and slash health-care costs by $3.4 billion to help pay for the salary hikes.
But budget watchdogs were skeptical.
Citizens Budget Commission head Carol Kellermann said, “It’s a good step forward that both labor and management acknowledge that health savings have to be used to fund salary increases, but this way of doing it seems dubious.”