Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's latest budget plan calls for even deeper cuts in education, Medicaid and law enforcement.
In the plan unveiled last Thursday, Giuliani seeks an additional $400 million in agency reductions on top of the $600 million announced in his preliminary plan in February.
The new cuts double Board of Education reductions to $126 million, and seek an additional $36 million from Medicaid, $33 million from law enforcement and $2.3 million the City University.
The mayor's $31.1 billion spending plan proposed spending reductions, welfare and Medicaid cuts and labor savings to close a projected budget gap of $3.1 billion for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The plan also proposes eliminating the commercial rent tax for business owners throughout the city, except for Manhattan south of 96th Street.
The mayor's plan assumes $250 million in new state aid, a prospect that is far from assured. State lawmakers are grappling with a $5 billion deficit of their own, and the state budget, which was due April 1, is still tied up in rancorous negotiations.
If the additional state aid does not come through, the mayor has proposed a contingency plan containing an additional $410 million in cuts to education, hospitals and cultural programs.
"This is a negotiation document," Giuliani said at a City Hall press conference. "While there is flexibility in this budget, there is no flexibility in the overall numbers to be reached."
The budget debate now moves to the City Council, which will bargain with the mayor on a final budget.
Last year, the city slashed more than $2 billion from the budget and cut its work force by 15,000, mostly through attrition.