!['[It’s] going to cost us a lot of money.' —Mayor Bloomberg on Gov. Cuomo’s decision to end the fingerprinting of New York food-stamp applicants](https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/08/bloomberg-300x30081.jpg?w=300)
‘[It’s] going to cost us a lot of money.’ —Mayor Bloomberg on Gov. Cuomo’s decision to end the fingerprinting of New York food-stamp applicants (AFP/Getty Images)
Gov. Cuomo’s decision to end electronic fingerprinting for food-stamp applicants could backfire because it will force the city to investigate them more thoroughly and delay approvals, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday.
Still smarting from the governor’s intervention in a controversy that affects only the city, the mayor was aggressive in his push-back.
“Without finger imaging we’ll have to increase the number of fraud investigations. That’s going to cost us a lot of money, and we’ll take a hard look at the quality controls for many of the initiatives that we’ve put in place,” the mayor said.
“When Albany decides to micromanage the city, it’s not always good.”
Bloomberg said it would be “a shame” if more extensive background checks led to delays in worthy people getting access to food stamps.
The program is 100 percent funded by Washington.
The state did away with the fingerprinting requirement for municipalities in 2007 but granted the city an exemption to keep its program intact.
Advocates have been pressing ever since to get it dropped as an unnecessary barrier that discourages some of the poor and needy from applying.
Cuomo has embraced that reasoning.
“We shouldn’t treat the poor or the hungry as criminals,” he said when announcing plans to end the procedure.
Public comments will be accepted for 45 days starting next Wednesday, after which the ban will take effect.
City officials have responded by pointing to the numbers, saying that 70.7 percent of the city’s eligible residents are enrolled in the program compared to only 68 percent of the state’s eligible residents.
The dispute seems to have struck a nerve with the mayor, who usually goes out of his way not to get into public confrontations with the governor.
Bloomberg has repeatedly questioned why food-stamp recipients won’t have to undergo fingerprinting like every city worker has to before they’re hired, as well as most employees in major organizations, including his own Bloomberg LP information-services empire.
With 1.8 million recipients, the food-stamp program here is by far the largest in the state.
Josh Vlasto, Cuomo’s spokesman, said he couldn’t understand how it would take longer to process applicants when one of the steps to do so was being eliminated.
He also pointed out that applicants can already go online to file for benefits.
On a different Albany front, the mayor said he wasn’t about to get involved in the fight to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour.
Both Cuomo and the state Assembly support the increase.
The Republican-led state Senate, where Bloomberg has considerable clout, does not.