If you listened to the radio over the holiday weekend, you heard commercials from the United Federation of Teachers and the Uniformed Firefighter Association decrying the consequences for city residents and schoolchildren of drastic funding cuts for their agencies. How great are those proposed spending cuts? The answer may be found in the tables on page 40 to 44 of this document, the city's May budget summary.
Total spending on the Department of Education, with all cost including retirement and debt service included, is proposed to increase by $306 million or 1.4%, in a year when inflation is zero and many people's wages are going down. To achieve this, the city's contribution is proposed to be increased by $833 million, minimum. The Fire Department budget is proposed to be reduced by $4 million, or 0.1%, with the city's contribution increasing by $133 million. What is going down is not what New Yorkers are paying, it is what they are getting in exchange.
By all means, restore that $4 million to the Fire Department so it will also break even. This way when people die, as the union asserts they will, because firehouses closed, they will not be able to say that New Yorkers deserved it because they paid less. It will be obvious that they merely got less.
A lot more of this coming. You'd think that in the City Council budget hearings, this would have at least been questioned. You'd also think that this would be in the lead sentence of every newspaper article about the budget. For example "even though New Yorkers will be paying as much or more for education and fire protection next year, 6,000 teachers will be laid off, class sizes will rise, after school activities will be eliminated, firehouses will close, response times will increase," etc. etc.
There is still time to write that article this year. And next year. And the year after next year.