Reeling from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's proposed budget cuts, borough leaders will send a counterproposal to the mayor today. The plan, intended to minimize damage to city services, lays out which cuts borough residents can tolerate and which are unacceptable.
The process has been arduous. For nearly 10 hours on Thursday, agency heads went before the Borough Board -- borough President Fernando Ferrer, members of City Council from the borough and heads of the 12 community boards -- to show how they would absorb the cuts. The hearing was the culmination of four weeks of emergency meetings and public hearings since Giuliani revealed his spending plan.
The city is trying to close a budget gap of nearly $3 billion budget gap expected for the next fiscal year. It's impossible to tell how much of that will affect the borough, because agencies haven't finalized how -- and where -- they will implement the cuts.
"I can't even conceive of $2.7 billion in cuts," said Bob Nolan, of Ferrer's office. "And I'm budget director."
In meetings with the borough board, agency heads described how they would have to cut services so severely to meet proposed city and state budget restraints that residents may have to fend for themselves in trying to find everything from bus rides to working toilets in public schools.
A budget must be adopted by the end of June.
Here are some of the highlights of recent hearings before the borough board:
EDUCATION
Finding ways to cut $690 million from the school system is no painless task, especially as schools struggle with leaky roofs, inadequate plumbing and space so cramped that classes have been conducted in stairwells.
"Our goal is to keep the cuts out of the classroom," said Barry Sullivan, the Board of Education's chief operations officer. "We will not be successful in that."
The largest cut, $150 million, will come from special education -- but only if legislative and court mandates can be waived. Laws require the school system to spend considerable sums on special education programs, which Sullivan said are too easy to get into, too hard to get out of and generally are poor in quality.
"If we fail to get that relief, our core services will be jeopardized, class sizes will grow and course offerings will diminish," Sullivan said.
Many services will be reduced or cut altogether: no more summer school for most students, no more junior varsity teams, no more school bus rides for pupils who live less than a mile from school or for sixth-graders who go to middle schools.
"Kindergartners walking one mile to school is almost unthinkable," Sullivan said.
"And in the middle of the winter with nothing shoveled," added Robert Buxbaum, chief executive of school facilities.
TRANSIT Representatives from the Transit Authority, which faces a $340 million deficit in the 1996 fiscal year, told the borough board they would shut down two bus routes, the Bx24 and the Bx18, because of low ridership. The Bx39 route will be shortened on the north end, and buses will run less frequently on six other routes.
Norman Silverman, a senior director of the agency, said subways or other buses are available wherever a bus route would be altered or closed.
"Those are the kind of changes we're trying to make -- those that save money but offer lots of alternatives," Silverman said.
Route closings and other major changes are subject to public hearings before any action may be taken.
TRANSPORTATION
The Department of Transportation would increase the overtime parking fine by $10 to make up much of the $24 million that Guiliani has proposed cutting from its budget.
"That is almost as controversial as budget cuts," said Robert Miller, the department's acting chief financial officer.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Although attendance at the borough's public libraries has risen in the last few months, they will have $700,000 less under the proposed budget.
To make up the difference, the Fordham Library Center would end Sunday service, leaving no public libraries in the borough open on Sunday.