Alternative cuts highlight budget priorities, while minimizing the impact on core services

CITY HALL – Speaker Christine C. Quinn, together with the Budget Negotiating Team and other Council Members, today released nearly $500 million in additional and alternative spending reductions designed to steer the City through the fiscal crisis while minimizing the negative impact on core services. The cuts would reduce the FY09 budget by nearly $170 million and the FY10 budget by over $325 million.

These reductions, which recognize the severity of this fiscal crisis, reflect common sense solutions designed to allow agencies to do more with less. Other cuts are designed to eliminate redundancies and maximize efficiencies.

One such reduction would reduce the Capital Scoping Project, a move that will save the City $20 million over the next year and a half. Another proposed cut is to reduce the NYPD’s recruitment advertising budget by $3.5 million in FY09 and growing to $7 million in FY10.

Reflecting one of the Council’s longstanding priorities, the plan cuts nearly $75 million from the Department of Education’s budget without taking money away from the classroom. Included in the plan is a proposal to eliminate the DOE’s Data Inquiry Teams. The program, which assists schools in data-driven decision-making by integrating components of standardized testing, carries a price-tag of $13 million. It is a job that principals can execute, without compromising the integrity of the testing.

“As we navigate our way through the financial crisis, we must compensate for budget shortfalls with an aggressive but sensible approach to spending reductions,” said Speaker Quinn. “The events of the past few months, including the unprecedented mid-year budget hearings we held at the Council, have made it abundantly clear that our financial crisis will not be corrected overnight. We must take the long view as we approach this and future budgets, so that we will avoid the mistakes of the 1970s and minimize the impact on our city.

“These cuts show that the Council is willing to make tough choices in the face of financial adversity, that we are willing to do more with less if that means acting in the best interest of our city,” continued Quinn. But they also show that we will find innovative solutions and reductions, so that we can continue longstanding priorities, like keeping money in the classroom where it belongs.”

“The ongoing fiscal climate necessitates we make tough cuts to the city’s budget,” said Finance Committee Chair David Weprin. “But we must choose budget cuts that least impact our core priorities and values. The Council’s alternative spending reductions presented today represent the best of that compromise.”

“Throughout the City, New Yorkers are tightening their belts as we adjust to these difficult economic times and City government must do the same,” said Council Member David Yassky. “Before we ask New Yorkers to shoulder the burden of more taxes, City government must do everything feasible to reduce its own costs.”

“We have difficult choices to make in reducing the Department of Education’s administrative budget while making sure dollars are not cut from our children’s classrooms,” said Education Committee Chair, Robert Jackson. “I want to thank my colleagues in the Council for their efforts to reduce spending without diverting vital resources from the classrooms.”

“Tough times call for tough decisions and that is exactly what we are tasked to do as elected officials,” said Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo. “I’m confident we in the Council, working in partnership with the Bloomberg administration will move forward in making sensible choices to spend wisely and deliver a balanced budget that will position our City to emerge from this economic downturn stronger than ever before. I want to thank my City Council colleagues for confronting these difficult economic times head on and working together to come up with necessary alternative spending reductions.”

“These cuts will help guide our City through tough times without harming essential services,” said Council Member Leroy Comrie. “Before raising taxes, we need to show the City can do more with less.”

“Today’s announcement demonstrates the Council’s willingness to deal with the difficult choices presented by the economic downturn in a sensible and proactive manner. These alternative spending reductions will help manage our City’s finances through this time of unprecedented economic crisis. We will also work hard to protect core services critical to the health and welfare of our neediest citizens,” said Council Member Inez Dickens.