NYC’s $105B budget barely nods at soaring inflation despite boost in reservesBy Nicole Gelinas
June 12, 2022
No city budget is inflation-proof. But in the $104.9 billion budget deal he made with the City Council last Friday, Mayor Eric Adams is making the budget slightly more inflation-resistant, with higher rainy-day reserves. That’s better than nothing.
But the numbers nevertheless show the scale of the catastrophe that’s about to hit the city, as the cost of day-to-day living soars nationwide.
Adams is a unique modern mayor, in that he has no signature big-ticket spending item. By contrast, Bill de Blasio had pre-K; Mike Bloomberg lavished new funds on the Department of Education; Rudy Giuliani and David Dinkins spent big on cops; Ed Koch poured rebuilding funds into the South Bronx.
For a guy who associates himself with public safety, it’s slightly strange that Adams hasn’t even added Police Academy classes, an easy tried-and-true law-and-order signal. But strange doesn’t mean bad: Adams continually says the police should be more efficient, and that’s probably true.
Similarly, he has responded to the fact that public-school enrollment has plummeted with the crazy notion of actually cutting planned DOE spending, by $215 million, less than 1%. Amazingly enough, the council has rightly gone along with this.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/06/12/nycs-105b-budget-barely-nods-at-soaring-inflation-despite-boost-in-reserves/
