Mayor de Blasio: New York City will likely see more revenue losses without a stimulus
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio discusses why the state needs over $7 billion in the coronavirus stimulus package on ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’
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Want to know why Washington balks at sending the city money? Read Julia Marsh’s Post story last week on the $2 million Mayor Bill de Blasio just spent on new hires and pay hikes.
Even as he threatens layoffs and furloughs, de Blasio brought in or promoted at least 10 people, many with six-figure salaries, boosting payroll costs by $2 million.
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ThriveNYC spokesman Joshua Goodman, for one, got a nice $45,000 raise (upping his pay to $175,000) when he became the Sanitation Department’s assistant commissioner for public affairs. Ashley Ross-Teel came on board as City Hall’s $160,000 chief content officer.
The mayor’s “unfettered spending” never stops, rails City Councilman Robert Holden, D-Queens. The city claims it’s in a hiring freeze, yet “we see nothing but high-paying hirings and promotions” — even as the mayor threatens layoffs. As Councilman Eric Ulrich, R-Queens, notes, many of the hires and raises surely could have waited.
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A city spokeswoman argues that there’s an exception for COVID-19-related hirings, and some were slotted pre-crisis. Yet since 2014, de Blasio has bloated the city head count by more than 30,000, or 10 percent, putting it at 330,000. Couldn’t any of them do the work assigned to the new folks?
No, $2 million isn’t much in a $90 billion budget. But de Blasio predicts a $6.6 billion drop in revenue for the fiscal year that starts June 1, thanks to the pandemic. So why boost staffing costs at all?
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