Bill de Blasio’s first spending plan as mayor doles out $13.5 billion in total raises to municipal employees — and is balanced with a lot of hopes that he’ll be able to pay for them with savings on health care.
The 10% boost over seven years assumes the contract de Blasio just cut with the teachers will set the pattern for the rest of the city’s workforce. Without the health savings, the raises run the risk of bankrupting the city.
The new spending, plus conservative revenue projections, plus generous pre-K funding from state coffers, add up to a $73.9 billion budget — a hefty 6% bump over the previous year.
It includes new investments in Hizzoner’s priorities, such as cutting NYCHA’s repair backlog ($70 million), shoring up bridges ($346 million), resurfacing roads ($49 million) and rehabbing police precincts ($110 million), along with a huge new investment in affordable housing.
Two things de Blasio did reject, smartly, were the City Council’s member item slush fund (which it will certainly fight to keep) and the Council’s unaffordable call for 1,000 new cops Police Commissioner Bill Bratton never asked for.
That’s all good, but what continues to be worrisome is that those billions in raises count on the promise of unspecified, possibly imaginary health-care savings that the administration assures us will absolutely, positively materialize.
The city and unions say they will work together and embrace a menu of options, from group purchasing of prescription drugs to increased use of clinics. Another big chunk of cash is supposed to come from kicking ineligible people off insurance rolls. Are there really that many cheaters?
They insist this mix of relatively pain-free adjustments will yield all the promised savings. Trust us, they promise.
Really? Bending the health-care cost curve has proven a Herculean challenge for Obamacare.
If they fall short, the city says, health-care cuts will go to an arbitrator — who will then have the power to impose more draconian measures.
Such as: forcing city workers to foot the bill by paying premiums or co-pays. Which is pretty much what every worker in the private sector already does.
It is unbecoming to watch municipal workers go to such elaborate lengths to avoid a pill that regular Joes and Josephines have long had to swallow.
Another pile of dough that takes the edge off the $13.5 billion in spending is $1 billion from a piggy bank called the Health Stabilization Fund. The money comes from a pot jointly controlled by unions and City Hall that had just been sitting there. But the city can use it only once — while the spending from raises recurs every year.
There’s also $3.5 billion Mayor Bloomberg wisely set aside in a labor reserve. That, too, can only be spent once.
And let it not be lost on de Blasio, who makes his political living crusading against the 1%, that the unexpected surge in revenue that enabled a boost in city spending this year came largely courtesy of the financial services industry.
De Blasio didn’t get the new tax he wanted on the wealthiest New Yorkers. He is, however, getting to spend plenty of their money.