Mayor Bill de Blasio is treating nearly $ 6 billion in federal stimulus money aimed at blowing up an epidemic-stricken city like the wind – blowing away tens of millions at a shot at big-government investments the city cannot afford And critics do not need to say.
“He’s spending like a drunken sailor and leaving it to placate the next mayor,” said Carol Kermenon, former chairman of the Budget Commission, the civilian chairman of independent fiscal monitoring.
Indeed, the taxpayer-funded relief amount was first announced several months ago by de Blasio’s daily press briefing, which includes a new $ 234 million expense for scavengers – whose right to sweep the streets Cleanliness is similar to work. Workers – and even $ 37 million to hire more government employees.
The mayor’s more persistent smile during those briefings may be somewhat conveyed to the Biden administration, who spent $ 3 billion in unrestricted US Rescue Plan funds during the last six months in the post, a virtual blank check to the term-limited de Blasio giving. The remaining $ 3 billion in unrestricted funds will have to be spent after May 2022 when the city has a new mayor.
The city received a $ 4.3 billion fund on Monday, along with another $ 1.7 billion for borrowers. Another $ 9 billion coming to the Big Apple is slated for specific purposes such as education and controlling coronaviruses. In all, the Big Apple will eventually see $ 15 billion from Uncle Sam.
City Hall could not immediately provide a full breakdown of where all the incentive funds would go, but Kellerman’s successor at CBC, Andrew Rein, said the disclosure is important.
“Transparent reporting on the use of federal aid is essential for accountability,” said Rene, who is wary of de Blasio to use short-term stimulus funds for sustainable projects and to induce employment.
For example, he notes that the $ 61 million De Blasio has pledged annually to raise overhead for non-profit organizations associated with the city.
“It is a good thing Need for Nonprofits But I don’t know what will happen four years from now, “said Rene, explaining that the money must come from the city, not a one-time cash injection from Washington, DC
Meanwhile, de Blasio hired 10,000 New Yorkers to make the city “cleaner and greener” to clean up the new city after a “New Deal-style” program. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a front-line candidate to replace De Blasio, has said he would dissolve the corpses if elected, because “we already have a sanitation department.”
The Biden incentive money would also be reversed, which Hijoner claimed was necessary to tighten the belt during the epidemic, with the mayor taking $ 21 million from Uncle Sam to repay municipal workers for a week last year Filled it.
Rene said City Hall should not reduce its 325,000-person workforce by increasing it to 5,000 people – a new budget item made possible by the American Recovery Act that would cost the city $ 37 million annually. The workforce has mobilized more than 30,000 people during De Blasio’s tenure.
The mayor will dive into federal money to build a long-planned, $ 105 million police prepaid in southeastern Queens – not to meet a budget but to meet the demands of ‘NYPD’ activists I went.
In the past several weeks, the American rescue plan seems to be De Blasio’s answer to almost all the city’s woes.
Struggling Theater Industry?
“I think you’re right, federal aid is important,” the mayor said during an April 28 daily press briefing if asked if the stimulus money would be used to revive Broadway.
Illegal immigrants who were not eligible for epidemic relief?
In a press conference on April 8, De Blasio said that the city has 500,000 “undeclared New Yorkers in this city … who are a huge contributor to this city, who are part of our economy.”
They should get incentives because “it’s the right thing to do,” De Blasio said.
City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) said, “We need to spend every dollar sensibly to emerge from the epidemic.”
“The mayor still hasn’t broken his habit of spending on the item like a drunken sailor, which doesn’t help the New Yorker,” Holdem said.
This year’s final budget proposal is the largest in the city’s history. At $ 98.6 billion, the plan is $ 10 billion more than it spent just a year earlier.
Groups like the CBC have criticized De Blasio’s plan to grieve his successor with a deficit of about $ 4 billion – a figure that rises to about $ 5 billion until the city receives major concessions from its labor unions does not do.
When asked about the federal bailout money, about the mayor’s shop-a-holly pennant, spokesman Bill Nehardt said: “There is a crisis of unemployment and Mayor de Blasio has directly created 10,000 jobs to shape New York City.” It is leadership in times of crisis. “
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