City Hall’s finances are in such good shape, Mayor Bloomberg suggested yesterday, that New Yorkers needn’t worry about layoffs, tax hikes or even major budget cuts. For now.
Trouble is, the preliminary financial plan he presented for the upcoming fiscal year — a cool $70 billion in outlays — is built on iffy one-shot revenues and crossed fingers:
* A full $1 billion of the budget depends on the city’s sale of 2,000 new taxi medallions. But that can only happen if Bloomberg strikes a deal with Gov. Cuomo on the details, if the plans survive legal challenges and if state lawmakers actually pass the necessary legislation.
* Another $1 billion or so will come from a reserve the city set up a few years back, leaving just $1 billion in the fund — and that’s slotted to vanish the next year.
Both the taxi cash and the reserve revenue are non-recurring — which is largely why projected future-year deficits run $3 billion in 2014, $3.5 billion the year after, and $3.4 billion the year after that.
Not a pretty picture.
By then, of course, Mayor Mike will be Citizen Mike (presumably). And someone else will be holding the bag.
Let’s face it: The US economy hasn’t rebounded with any real zest at all since it hit rock bottom in 2008 (though, as the mayor noted, the city has fared better than other parts of the country.)
Sure, everyone hopes business picks up, folks get jobs, tax revenues grow . . .
But what if they don’t? The more prudent tack would’ve been to tighten spending now.
If things turn rosy, no harm done.
If not, the city is protected.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s formal budget proposal won’t come until April; by then, the spend-happy City Council and a bevy of mayoral wannabes will be jockeying to make matters worse.
All of a sudden, the city’s finances don’t seem to be in such great shape after all.