With a major fiscal crisis just starting to take hold of city government, the budget passed late Tuesday night will include cuts to more than just the NYPD's budget.
Take the city's deer sterilization program; it will be eliminated in the current fiscal year, saving the city $700,000. Sunday litter basket collection is also going away, saving $4 million. Rates are going up in some two-hour metered parking zones to raise $5 million. Then there is the Fair Fares program, which provides reduced-fare MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers. A $65-million cut to the program has been widely criticized, including by transit officials. But the Mayor insists it's only to account for decreased ridership during the coronavirus pandemic.
"The whole underlying concept of the program just got disrupted profoundly by the coronavirus. And we're not gonna see that turn around in the short term,” said Mayor de Blasio.
There's been skepticism over how the NYPD will achieve roughly $300 million in planned overtime reduction, but the Department of Correction is also being asked to cut back on OT by $66 million a year.
Hiring freezes will hit some agencies hard: the Department of Social Services will end up down 700 employees, a savings of $12 million. All of this is on top of billions of dollars in previously announced cuts to help fill a huge gap in tax revenue caused by the pandemic.
There is some good news: not only have youth employment programs been restored, but so has the Department of Education's Single Shepherd guidance counselor program and CUNY's popular ASAP student support program. And there are coronavirus savings, like the $50 million unspent on summer school buses and $15 million in efficiencies from the remote learning program.