For New York’s business elite and their mouthpieces, the answer is easy: unionized municipal workers and working people in general. The Citizens Budget Commission, an influential business-backed “fiscal watchdog” group whose “nonpartisan” budget analysis shapes public debate, called for “Hard Choices” to shore up the city’s finances. To anyone familiar with the CBC, its recommendations are hardly surprising: cuts to services, cuts to the unionized workforce, and shifting health care costs from the city to employees, among other measures.

While the CBC does not call for layoffs, it proposes a sharp pace of attrition, filling just one of every three vacancies over the next two years. It wants to eliminate the Absent Teacher Reserve, popularly known as the “rubber room” or “teacher jail,” which would permanently lay off hundreds of “excessed” union teachers. Since many teachers end up there without explanation or justification, this would amount to an unfair denial of their due process rights under the contract.

“Premium-sharing” for health insurance would save the city $700 million each year. Nearly all New York City employees and retirees currently do not pay premiums for health insurance, which also includes their dependents—a benefit that most American workers can only dream of.

The CBC wants retirees to pay 16 percent of their pre-Medicare insurance premiums and 25 percent of Medicare Part B and Supplemental Medicare coverage. This would cost pre-Medicare retirees $2,500 annually and Medicare recipients $800.

Health care is the main place to look for savings, said Maria Doulis, vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission. Excluding municipalities in California, none holds a larger health insurance liability than New York City's estimated $110 billion.

“No other city or state is offering as generous health benefits to retirees and their families,” Doulis said. “The liability for retiree health care benefits is much larger than the liability for pensions.”

The CBC argues the city should work with the Municipal Labor Committee on a health insurance premium-sharing agreement in which workers would contribute a portion of the cost of the premium.

“That reform would be sufficient to generate hundreds of millions of dollars and prevent the layoffs of 22,000 people,” Doulis said.

As of Sept. 30, the NYPD counted 34,496 officers among its ranks, the lowest in at least a decade, according to department statistics, a number that will dip further as more cops file for retirements.

Graduates from the March and July classes would have brought 1,163 new cops to city streets, and the October class an estimated 550. Total savings from the cancellation of the March and July classes, penciled in through at least 2024, are estimated at $81 million, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.

While the state invested $500 million in broadband in 2015, a map from the Citizens Budget Commission shows many rural areas in Upstate New York still did not have 100 megabits per service availability as of June 2019.

While Mayor Bill de Blasio called the launch of the NYC Ferry in 2017 “a new day for our city,” critics have charged that its cost outweighs its benefits. The watchdog Citizens Budget Commission calculated last year that with passengers paying just $2.75 a ride, each one cost the government $9.34. Observers have noted that the vast majority of ferry riders come from high-income neighborhoods.

But it’s unclear whether deficit spending will actually solve any of the city’s problems, or merely delay the inevitable — 22,000 potential layoffs — while burdening future generations with onerous debt service payments.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said that the mayor should have released far more detailed plans to address the looming budget nightmare by now.

“We’re not getting real about facing this crisis,” he said.

The governor threatened that if the city misses the April 2021 deadline, it will miss out on future funding from the state.

According to June data from the Citizens Budget Commission, just 2 percent or $82 million of the NYPD’s budget is state-funded.

It’s long past time for Gov. Cuomo to offer up his Plan B for spending cuts if the feds don’t dump tens of billions on the state.



Critics, such as the Citizens Budget Commission, rightly warn of the dangers of failing to advance a responsible fiscal plan.

Yes, the gov has rightly been withholding funds for localities to match the drop in state revenues — but he hasn’t said which cuts are locked in, so those governments aren’t necessarily doing the long-term slashing they should.

Cuomo is still holding out for congressional action after the November elections, or for a new President, if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins, to act.

On Wednesday, five government reform groups including Citizens Budget Commission, Reinvent Albany, and Common Cause, wrote a letter to Cuomo urging him to outline concrete steps to close what they estimate is a $9 billion dollar deficit.

The Citizens Budget Commission, a New York-based think tank that has released a proposal about how to balance the budget without new taxes focused on the rich, released a report in June finding that the number of people with income of at least $1 million grew faster between 2010 and 2017 nationwide than it did in New York and that the share of U.S. millionaires living in New York declined during that period.

Andrew Rein, president of the commission, said state policymakers should be cautious about raising taxes on high earners.

“High-income earners contribute a lot to the tax base,” he said.

Despite the DOJ’s contention that the NYPD had seen its budget decrease by $1 billion this fiscal year, that is not the case. According to a Citizens Budget Commission analysis published Aug. 13, the city’s adopted Fiscal Year 2021 budget cut $345 million from the department’s operating budget, with most of that trim reflecting a one-time reduction in overtime expenses.

This is not the first time the Trump Administration has threatened to withhold funds from cities and municipalities whose local laws run afoul of the administration’s ideology. The Department of Justice in 2017 said it would withhold public-safety grants designated for so-called “sanctuary” cities and states—jurisdictions that do not cooperate with immigration authorities can have their Justice Assistance Grants withheld. New York City’s share of the JAG grants amount to about $4 million, while the state’s share comes to about $9 million.

“The federal government should provide New York with additional aid, but the time for waiting has passed – we’re halfway through the state fiscal year,” David Friedfel, the Director of State Studies for the Citizens Budget Commission told Spectrum News. “The state needs to release a plan of how it will balance this year’s budget, and do so shortly. School districts, localities, Medicaid providers, and other state vendors need to be able to plan for the remainder of the year.”

“The governor was clearly counting on having some money from the feds. Here we are looking at the final week in September and now Congress is in this state of red-hot polarization,” E.J. McMahon, founder and senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy told Spectrum News.

Underscoring McMahon’s point, House Democrats are now looking to postpone a vote Tuesday to keep the government funded through December 11. While the postponement on this continuing resolution isn’t directly related to stimulus funding, it speaks to the hardening of positions in Washington.

Based on the parties’ divergent positions, any deal on stimulus would have required serious, meaningful compromise. That is far less likely now.

So, what are the governor’s options?

The CBC outlined a plan which will allow the state to balance this year’s budget. The plan includes both tax cuts and leveraging rainy day reserves. It also changes how capital expenses are financed, makes limited cuts in school aid that would only impact wealthy districts, delays tax cuts, and suspends certain tax exemptions.

“By (the state) announcing its intentions, it will allow New Yorkers to plan and adjust as necessary,” Friedfel told Spectrum News.