De Blasio and Mark-Viverito tout early budget agreement

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio invoked the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican with starkly different policy positions whom he once called “delusional,” while touting how promptly he and the City Council sealed a budget agreement with a ceremonial handshake.

“This is the earliest handshake since 2001. … To give you perspective, Rudy Giuliani was mayor still at that point – that’s how far back we have to go to see something done this early and efficiently,” de Blasio said, surrounded by about three dozen lawmakers on the steps in the City Hall rotunda Wednesday afternoon. “This budget is a real achievement in terms of the things it will do for the people of New York City, but also because it represents government that’s cooperative and productive and respectful.”

Some lawmakers echoed this sentiment, with City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito calling the process efficient, honest and public. And Finance Committee Chairwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland said she could not recall announcing prior years’ agreements before sunset.

This year’s $82.1 billion agreement comes after the council pushed for fewer banner measures than in previous years, such as lawmakers’ ultimately successful call for the hiring of 1,000 more cops during the past two budget cycles. Still, the council proved successful in getting the mayor to add more resources to many of its priorities, including youth employment initiatives, aid for emergency food providers like soup kitchens and bolstering the budgets of district attorney and libraries.

However, the deal did not address some lawmakers’ concerns about the strategy the city uses to search for savings in agency budgets and about de Blasio’s plan to financially stabilize the municipal hospital system. Regardless, lawmakers are expected to pass the budget sometime next week.

The fiscal plan will include $18 million more for the Summer Youth Employment Program – enough to ensure 60,000 slots are open this summer. The council’s Progressive and Black, Latino and Asian caucuses had called for funding improvements and an increase of the number of job slots available, with the goal of having enough positions – about 100,000 – so that all who apply could be hired by fiscal year 2019. In May, Councilman Jumaane Williams said that without the administration’s public commitment to fully fund the initiative by fiscal year 2019, lawmakers would have “failed.”

The mayor committed to maintaining enough money for 60,000 positions in future fiscal plans, a practice called baselining. He also outlined plans to convene a task force charged with recommending ways to improve the initiative in time for next year’s budget, and said there was a good chance the initiative would offer more positions in future years.

Williams said he viewed the task force as a win. “We’re in a good place; we’re finally saying how important this is and backing it up with resources,” Williams said. “We got what we asked for for the first year, which is 60,000 summer youth jobs.”

The administration also agreed to increase funding for district attorneys’ offices by $22 million, to baseline another $21 million for libraries, to up funding for cultural organizations by $10 million and to add nearly $5 million for emergency food providers.

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who chairs the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries, said this would ensure libraries can plan on keeping all branches open at least six days a week in the future.

“(The libraries) can budget appropriately and the staff who are hired at the libraries won’t have to worry for their jobs every single day until we get to this point where we shake hands – that’s a relief for everybody,” Van Bramer said. “I’m incredibly pleased.”

In response to lawmakers’ prodding, de Blasio said the city would further prepare for a potential economic downturn by adding another $250 million to the city’s Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund and by finding $440 million in savings over the next two years. In all, de Blasio said the city will be undertaking the largest savings program in five years.

The $82.1 billion figure is less than the proposal de Blasio presented earlier this year, thanks to savings found by city agencies – mostly as a result of health care agreements made when labor unions signed new contracts.

Still, spending has increased in recent years, and some lawmakers have urged de Blasio to implement a “Program to Eliminate the Gap,” in which agencies are instructed to identify potential ways to trim their budgets and lawmakers can track which of those proposals are implemented.

When asked about the PEG push, de Blasio said his administration was focused on curbing health care costs and examining spending “program by program.”

The council’s concerns about the finances of NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospitals system, also remain unresolved.

When de Blasio unveiled his budget plan this spring, Mark-Viverito and Ferreras-Copeland said they were concerned his plan to restructure Health + Hospitals relied too heavily on action in Albany and Washington, D.C.

Today, Mark-Viverito said conversations on this topic were “ongoing.”

Correction: A previous version stated that Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer was the chair of the Subcommittee on Libraries. He is the chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries. It also stated that the fiscal plan will include $39 million more for the Summer Youth Employment Program. It will $18 million more.