“In 1991, for example, 4,000 teachers took advantage of the ERI, and 3,500 followed in 1995. More recently, the Citizens Budget Commission estimates that the ERI authorized by Governor Paterson in 2010, which 9,311 employees opted in, saved New York’s state and local governments a combined $681 million over two years, as they exchanged $1.4 billion in payroll costs for $755 million in pension benefit costs.”

The watchdog Citizens Budget Commission urged state leaders to reject the borrowing bill, saying the city hasn't dug deep enough.



“While the city arguably faces its biggest fiscal crisis in generations, city leaders have not yet taken sufficient action to reduce expenditures, which is necessary before borrowing for operations is considered,” CBC President Andrew Rein wrote to top lawmakers. “Borrowing at this stage in the crisis would relieve city leaders from their responsibility to make the hard choices necessary now to manage the city budget in this time.”

The 51-member City Council is considering de Blasio’s $89.3 billion executive budget, which it must approve by June 30.

According to Rein, city-funded spending will continue to rise in fiscal 2021 and the city projects adding employees between fiscal 2021 and 2024. “This does not demonstrate the assertive approach necessary to tackle the city’s serious fiscal problems, and borrowing for operating expenses should not be authorized as an ‘easy way out’ of making hard choices,” Rein said.

“The city has not come close to what it needs to do to control spending to get its fiscal house in order,” Andrew Rein, head of the Citizens Budget Commission, said in an interview. “Borrowing should be near or at the bottom of any list and we are not close to there yet.”

But other resolutions are anathema to de Blasio, who entered the 2013 mayor’s race with a call to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay for universal pre-kindergarten. (He won the policy, not the tax, after taking office.)

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, said his group opposes the bill. Mr. Rein said in an interview that New York City officials should take steps to constrain spending before turning to borrowing.

“It’s really too soon to have this on the table,” he said.

And Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that “borrowing for operating expenses is fiscally questionable.”

After Sept. 11, New York raised depleted revenue by temporarily increasing personal income taxes on top-earning city residents. Maria Doulis, vice president of the watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission, said it will be harder to repeat that.

New York taxpayers are already squeezed by the 2017 federal tax law that capped state and local deductions from federal income taxes. Additionally, the state enacted an income tax on residents reporting more than $1 million in income in 2009 that is largely still in place. Ms. Doulis said further tax increases could jeopardize the city’s competitiveness.

“You need population growth and you need business growth to maintain the revenues to provide city services to make New York an attractive place to live and work and hang out,” she said.

An across-the-board cut, which most officials expect, would disproportionately hurt districts that rely on state aid the most, like Mount Vernon.

The Citizens Budget Commission, a statewide nonprofit that seeks governmental reforms, said in a recent statement that Albany should not cut aid to districts that lack the local resources to give students a sound, basic education.

"Across-the-board cuts may be more politically palatable but will have a disproportionate impact on the less wealthy school districts that receive a greater portion of their revenues from the State," the group said.

The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) last week released a report detailing how to close the state’s budget gap without resorting to 20% cuts to localities and education Governor Andrew Cuomo warned about at the end of April after the release of an updated state financial plan.

According to that budget report, revenues were $13 billion below projections. But in “New York State's Hard Choices: Next Steps to Address Fiscal Stress”, the CBC’s Director of State Studies David Friedfel and Senior Advisor for Health Policy Charles Brecher have calculated that the actual amount of this year’s gap is $8 billion.

“The Governor has talked a lot about this $13.2 billion gap which is kind of a comparison to the way things were when the executive budget came out versus where revenues look today,” explained the CBC’s Friedfel.

“It doesn’t account for federal aid that’s come in since then, as well as some cuts that the legislature and the Governor agreed to as part of the enacted budget,” he told Spectrum News.

“So when you take all those things into account, the gap that’s left to be closed is about $8 bi

Budget watchdogs are wary of that option.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said the city should look to make cuts first before increasing the city’s debt load.

“It lets the city off the hook from making the hard choices it needs to make today,” Rein said. “And if it doesn’t make those hard choices, and borrows for operations, we are going to make our children pay for our bill, we’re going to constrain future budgets, we’re going to make them have higher taxes.”

The practices forced the state to create a separate agency to borrow long term bonds to cover the city’s spending habits.

Andrew Rein of the Citizens Budget Commission told The Post that New York City needs to cut the fat elsewhere, and borrowing should be a last resort.

“When you borrow for operating costs you’re basically telling your kids to pay for the cops, teacher and trash pick up today. It’s not only not fair to them, it also constrains their budget.”

The two were among five "Sages for the Ages" assembled by the Citizens Budget Commission last Wednesday to come up with ideas for how the city and the state can manage through the crisis. All professed optimism about the future, but what they said actually was that the foundations of the recovery of the 1970s no longer exist.

Certainly some nostalgia for the events that helped these public servants make their mark colored their views, but the specifics were compelling. Here are the key ways today is different.

Borrowing for operations should only be used as a last resort, said Maria Doulis, vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-backed budget watchdog.

“The city needs to do a lot more to cut spending, streamline operations, partner with labor, and make the hard choices now before we ask future New Yorkers to sacrifice their tax dollars for today’s expenses.”

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said the city should look to make cuts first before increasing the city’s debt load.