Mayor de Blasio is in the midst of a hiring spree that will add more than 1,000 workers to the public payroll — reversing a six-year trend of downsizing city government, a report says.
While most municipal agencies are set to shrink or stay the same size, de Blasio is bringing in hundreds of new teachers, cops and jailers, according to an analysis by Crain’s New York Business.
The mayor is also boosting the ranks of the Health Department as part of his plan for universal pre-K classes, and beefing up the Transportation Department to help pursue his “Vision Zero” goal of reducing traffic deaths, Crain’s said.
In all, de Blasio’s first budget calls for 1,062 additional employees who will swell the city’s workforce to 302,726.
According to Crain’s, the new jobs were made possible in part by higher-than-projected tax revenues.
De Blasio also got help from the balanced budget left by ex-Mayor Mike Bloomberg — the first time in the city’s history an incoming mayor got such a gift, according to Crain’s.
De Blasio’s budget calls for $75 billion in spending, $5 billion more than Bloomberg allocated during the last of his 12 years in office.
The budget gives the Department of Education the lion’s share of new workers: 377 teachers, with most focused on special education.
And the free spending comes as the mayor agreed to a $5.5. billion contact with the United Federation of Teachers, that will see salaries for rookie educators rise from $45,530 to $54,411 by 2018.
The NYPD is also getting 270 more cops, while the Health Department will grow by 234 employees.
Other new spending includes $15 million for new council programs, on top of $51 million to continue existing programs and another $36 million for “enhancements . . . to increase services.”
Crain’s also reported that of de Blasio’s 75 top appointees, 52 percent are women and 47 percent are non-white. By comparison, it cited published figures showing that in 2010, 64 percent of Bloomberg’s top 80 appointees were men and 79 percent were white.
In addition, Crain’s counted up the words that de Blasio most frequently uttered during speeches and press conferences.
Topping the list was “pre-K,” with 528 mentions, followed by “children” at 445, and “jobs” at 200.
The mayor’s office noted that the Economic Development Corp. had tallied 61,800 private-sector jobs created since December, for an all-time high of 3.5 million.
“From universal pre-kindergarten to bringing police and community closer together to fighting income inequality, the de Blasio administration has since Day One focused . . . on implementing . . . policy reforms that will . . . make a real difference in the lives of everyday New Yorkers,” a spokesperson said.