Site icon Staten Island's [Hyper]Local Paper(less). Staten Island News.

Mayor’s Office Of Management and Budget Roundtable: NYC Budget Is Balanced Without Any Layoffs, Service Disruptions, Increased Taxes

Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer
Share

The Mayor’s Office Of Management and Budget Held a Roundtable Discussion With Ethnic and Community Media Partners

Editor’s note: The following statement was received from Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer at the Interfaith Center of NYC regarding the issues raised in the meeting about using houses of worship as migrant beds: 

“Back in the days of Mother Cabrini when Italians immigrants faced discrimination, some city authorities used over-zealous application of building safety and sanitation codes as a way of disincentivizing these migrants from settling in certain neighborhoods. 
Today, expensive building violations issued to mostly immigrant and poor houses of worship are the main obstacle preventing the 200+ Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues in NYC from qualifying for a city-run program to reimburse houses of worship for sheltering up to 19 mostly Latin American and West African Migrants–a program that would save tax-payers hundreds of dollars a night.
No one doubts the importance of building and fire safety as a top priority for the FDNY and DOB–the city, afterall, came up with the idea for this innovative program. Less clear is why these agencies aren’t doing more to exercise discretion during this emergency. Gov. Christy, as a counterpoint, used his power as governor to wave some of the regulations to allow groups of volunteers to stay in shelters so they could help rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. 
Out of 200 houses of worship that have expressed interest, only 10 are operating.  So why can’t we learn from New Jersey?”

 

The Mayor’s OMB office held a virtual meeting with ethnic and community media publishers via Zoom. They were able to successfully balance the budget for this fiscal year. Among their rules were that they could not lay off any employees, they could not make major service reductions, and without raising taxes.

Due to an unexpected surplus in revenue, of several million dollars, the OMB was able to balance the budget within these requirements. The original budget gap was expected to be $7 billion, but instead there was $2 billion in unanticipated revenue by September. Consequently, they were able to be fiscally responsible, and the budget is now balanced. The law required that the city have a balanced budget.

In addition to this summary, the Mayor’s Office answered a question from the Staten Islander News regarding using houses of worship as temporary migrant beds. This would be at an agreed-upon (by the churches in the Covenant for New York’s newest New Yorkers) rate of $75 per night.

As we saw at the beginning of this week, the City appears to be attempting to take the religious institutions up on their offer. This would likely save the City a great deal of money, as most of the hotel rooms they are currently using to house migrants have a cost of $300 per night or more. This would depend on the neighborhood. It has been reported that some hotel rooms have a cost of $700 per night, so $75 instead is quite a cost savings.

Banner Image: Video cover. Image Credit – Staten Islander News 


Share

This byline indicates that this article was penned by a member/members of the Staten Islander News Organization office team. Our staff writers are the backbone of our newspaper, performing all sorts of important tasks like conducting interviews, investigating leads, besides writing the news stories you see.