The city’s top financial official is expected to issue a warning today that future budget gaps will be larger than anticipated, debt will grow and pension and overtime costs will surpass expectations.
Comptroller William Thompson, a likely 2009 mayoral candidate, plans to tell the Financial Control Board at a hearing today that the city’s debt is likely to increase 7.6 percent each year through Fiscal Year 2012.
The budget gap is likely to reach $68 million this year and exceed $5.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2012, due to disappointing tax returns and growing overtime expense, he said.
Thompson released the grim figures in a 50-page report yesterday in anticipation of the hearing, where he, Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg are scheduled to testify.
Thompson also called for a “rainy-day fund,” which city officials have long hoped for.
The city has been barred from keeping such a stash since the fiscal turmoil of the 1970s, and the system could be changed only through state legislation.
Thompson, who is likely to trumpet his financial background as he competes for the mayoralty, carefully avoided criticizing the billionaire mayor in his report.
Still, the picture Thompson painted is grimmer than Bloomberg’s. For example, the comptroller said the city has underestimated overtime costs by $100 million per year.