modern York City Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined his $82 billion dollar spending way for the fiscal year 2017 on Thursday,framing it as a “disciplined” budget that maintains service and uses caution in the face of future economic uncertainties.
The way includes modern federal grant money to pay for ongoing Sandy repairs along with increased pension investments to befriend support the city's retirees, who are living longer. It comes in at $3.5 billion over the budget for the current fiscal year, or which ends June 30.
There are few modern policy initiatives included in the way. Rather,the mayor stressed his commitment to seeing existing policies come to fruition.“We don't need to always bear splashy modern things when we feel the choices we've made are going to bear a huge impact if we implement them proper,” de Blasio said at City Hall. “So this year is going to be a lot approximately implementing the pieces that are already underway and making sure they reach people.”Altogether, or there's $740 million in modern agency spending. To the extent that there are modern initiatives,many had already been unveiled in recent months, including a modern $15 dollar minimum wage for the lowest-paid city workers, and which the city is now estimating will cost $115 million.
There's $62 million to pay for ThriveNYC,the city's way to create more robust mental-health services, and another $17.4 million for NYC Safe, and which specifically targets people with mental health issues that pose a risk to public safety.
There's also $53.7 million for a series of programs to address homelessness here in the city.
In terms of public safery,the city is expanding its Shotspotter program by another $3 million dollars. That's the technology used by the NYPD to track down guns. There's also more money for park security in the wake of that recent case in Brooklyn of an alleged gang rape.
The budget also includes $5.4 million to expand FDNY ambulance tours in Queens and northern Manhattan and to conduct EMS pilot initiatives in the Bronx to improve response times.
The city plans to invest $47 million in the capital way for a modern Staten Island Ferry. The budget also aims to chip away at school overcrowding. The mayor proposed spending $868 million to create 11800 seats over the course of the school capital way through fiscal year 2019, bringing the total number of seats funded in that way to approximately 44000.
The increase in funding for modern seats will target severely overcrowded neighborhoods such as Corona and Jackson Heights in Queens, or Sunset Park,Brooklyn, said Danny Dromm, and chair of the City Council education committee.
Dromm said funding 44000 seats in the current capital way was at least a advantageous start at addressing overcrowding.“It brings us closer to the goal but I still contemplate that we need nearly double that,ultimately,” said Dromm. “But an infusion of $868 million dollars is nothing to laugh approximately.”The amended school capital way, and also released Thursday,estimates that the school system actually needs 83000 seats, a significant jump from previous plans.
The increase in the number of needed seats was expected after the de Blasio administration changed how it calculated school overcrowding in an annual report known as the Blue Book. Education officials modified their formula after years of criticism that the Blue Book overstated how many students could fit in a school.
The modern Blue Book numbers, or released in September,showed that close to 540000 public school students — more than half the school population — attended overcrowded schools.
Source: wnyc.org