Gov. Cuomo told Mayor Bloomberg to quit his whining yesterday as Hizzoner railed against “outrageous” state cuts that he said would force him to go ahead with plans to lay off thousands of teachers under the hard-times budget pact approved over the weekend by state leaders.
The mayor warned the $10 billion gap-closing plan would almost certainly spur city-government layoffs by slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid without providing relief from burdensome state-mandated expenses.
“Proportionately, the cuts inflicted on New York City are an outrage,” Bloomberg said. “We are the jewel of the financial crown in New York state. If we don’t keep making investments and improving the quality of this city, then we aren’t going to provide the monies the rest of the state depends on.”
To that, Cuomo’s spokesman shot back that the final deal would restore to the city tens of millions of dollars in state aid and contended that City Hall had enough cash to cover much of the remaining shortfall.
“The city Department of Education has a surplus of over $300 million, and the city revenue position has improved so they have much less pressure on their overall budget,” Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said.
The mayor said the restorations were “certainly not enough to avoid layoffs” and insisted the city had “no extra money.” Earlier, Bloomberg had warned that state budget cuts would force him to fire more than 4,600 teachers.
Bloomberg and Cuomo also renewed their spat over the elimination of the city’s $302 million share of aid and incentives for municipalities, or AIM. The money was suspended last year by then-Gov. David Paterson and killed outright this year by Cuomo while giving smaller cities a mere cut.
“We got cut 100 percent,” Bloomberg complained. “Everyone else got cut 3 percent.”
The governor was having none of that, either.
“AIM aid to the city was not cut 100 percent,” Vlasto said. “Prudent budgeting would not have counted that as an increase.”
Many details about the $132.5 billion budget deal were still unclear as lawmakers and staff worked to iron out dozens of unsettled fights, including how communities would divide the $272 million restoration to Cuomo’s proposed $1.5 billion cut to education spending.
The city was facing an initial school-aid cut of $580 million. City officials were disappointed that the amount included what would have been a statewide restoration of at least $49 million to schools for the blind and deaf.
Earlier, they had expected that restoration could come on top of the $272 million.
The overall budget deal closed a $10 billion deficit without new borrowing or major tax hikes and allowed a 2-year-old income-tax surcharge on the wealthy to expire. The agreement was hailed by business organizations and criticized by union-backed advocacy groups dependant on state funding.
“This budget agreement goes a long way toward putting New York on the right track,” said the state Business Council’s acting president, Heather Briccetti. “The next step is to finish the fiscal-reform agenda.”
Briccetti called on the Legislature to next act on Cuomo’s promise to enact a 2 percent cap on property taxes and provide mandate relief to local governments.
Bloomberg said repealing the state’s “last in, first out” job protections for teachers should take top priority.
The deal rankled Legislature Democrats, who, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), had pushed hard for an extension of the millionaires tax and wanted a renewal of rent regulations included in the plan.
“I’m very disappointed that there were opportunities for revenue that were not taken advantage of, particularly the so-called millionaires tax,” said Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan). “As a result, there are cuts and less-than-satisfactory restorations. That concerns me a great deal. It will be hard to vote for it.”
Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) said yesterday that they were on track to pass the plan before the state’s April 1 budget deadline. Eyes would be on Silver’s Democratic conference to see whether the speaker would be able to muster the majority of Democrats he typically requires, Capitol insiders said.
Cuomo secured one of his clearest victories with his plan to eliminate 3,700 prison beds by closing up to six prisons. After seeking to scale back the plan or place legal restrictions on it, Skelos, in the end, accepted Cuomo’s promise to make sure such closures were “balanced geographically.”
“It’s shocking to see how the Senate Republicans just gave up and completely folded,” said one person familiar with the talks. “The Republicans under Dean Skelos folded like a cheap suit.”