The summer youth employment program and the collection of organic waste will be suspended. Tree pruning and tree stump removal will be curtailed. There will be a hiring freeze.
Before the outbreak, Mr. de Blasio had overseen a period of booming growth in tax revenue and economic prosperity that had allowed him to spend more than past mayors. But the city now projects a loss of 500,000 jobs over the first three quarters of 2020, the end of a decade-long expansion of jobs.
Most of those losses are expected in the second quarter, with retail, leisure and the hospitality industry making up half the job losses.
“We don’t know when this crisis ends,” the mayor said. “We do know it will end, that much we can say, thank God. But we don’t know when, we don’t know how, and we know that the impact that’s been made on people continues to grow, and we know that the loss of revenue could be even greater.”
The mayor, a Democrat in his second term, said the budget focuses on four basic measures of keeping city residents safe, healthy, housed and fed.
“If we can’t provide the basics for our people, then you can kiss your recovery goodbye,” Mr. de Blasio said.
City officials had to dip into savings to balance the budget, drawing $900 million from the general reserve, $250 million from the capital stabilization fund and $2.6 billion from the retiree health benefits fund, a move that does not affect retiree benefits in the short term.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/nyregion/nyc-budget-coronavirus.html
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