Mayor de Blasio Offers 'Minimalist' $95.3 Billion Budget, Warning of Cuts

On Thursday, de Blasio released a $95.3 billion budget proposal that called for a 2.7% increase — the smallest percentage increase in his six years in office.

Even though city revenues are expected to be strong, the mayor said that the state’s projected $6 billion deficit could loom large over New York City, and that the state could cut its funding to the city, or ask the city to increase its share of payments for things like the subway.

“We’ve never seen this kind of state deficit, and we’ve never seen this kind of threat to our Medicaid recipients,” de Blasio said at a news conference, pledging to protect New Yorkers from any state cuts.

De Blasio, a Democrat in his second term, has overseen a period of booming growth in tax revenue and economic prosperity, allowing him to spend more than past mayors: De Blasio, for example, has expanded the city’s workforce past 350,000 people.

But this year, officials in New York City and other municipalities are worried that state leaders might try to balance the budget on the backs of local governments. The heart of the state budget deficit stems from the state’s overspending on Medicaid.

Dani Lever, the governor’s communications director, pushed back against the mayor, teasing him for his preferred bagel: a toasted whole wheat with extra cream cheese, a pick that was widely derided a day earlier.

“We have heard of smoke and mirrors and political straw men,” Lever said in a statement. “How the mayor can claim he is reacting to cuts from the state, before the state has even proposed a budget, is spreading the political cream cheese too thick even for a toasted bagel.”

Other potential sinkholes for the city exist.

De Blasio faces pressure to address the crisis that has devastated the city’s taxi industry. A panel appointed by de Blasio and the City Council is expected to propose a bailout of thousands of taxi medallion owners that could cost as much as $500 million.

De Blasio said he liked the plan because it relies largely on private financing as part of a public-private partnership.

“It’s the best idea I’ve heard so far,” the mayor told reporters, though he said he was reluctant to commit significant direct funding from the city.

On Thursday, de Blasio announced his nominee to be the next leader of the city agency that oversees the taxi industry: Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk, who currently serves as chief of staff to the deputy mayor for operations. The City Council failed to approve the previous official he nominated for the job.

De Blasio could be pushed to spend elsewhere. Leaders at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the city’s subway and buses, have also called on the city to pay $3 billion to fix the transit system in the coming years. Funding for a taxi bailout or new subway spending was not included in the mayor’s preliminary budget.

The city’s last budget was $92.8 billion and included spending increases on things like providing social workers at city schools and a program to boost participation in the federal census. The previous budget included funding for discounted subway and bus fares for some of the poorest New Yorkers.

City officials attributed $1.6 billion of the growth in the preliminary budget to the settling of outstanding labor union contracts and said it would cost $175 million to implement changes related to bail and discovery reform.

Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller and a mayoral candidate in 2021, said that de Blasio must protect the city from leaders in Albany who frequently target New York City’s budget when the state budget is in peril.

“You can’t play checkers with Albany, you have to play chess,” said Stringer, who characterized the mayor’s plan as a “minimalist budget.” “There has to be a strategy to go to Albany and thinking about how we keep them at bay.”

De Blasio admitted that his budget plan was missing the “juicy” parts that he has typically highlighted in previous years, especially initiatives to help low-income New Yorkers, but he said he wanted to exercise caution until he sees how things play out with the state.

One area where he wants to add funding: $98 million in capital funds to improve street safety on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. The upgrades would be part of his Vision Zero safety plan to eliminate traffic deaths — a program that some worry is faltering after traffic deaths rose in the city last year.

Maria Doulis, vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission, warned that it was still early in the budget process and that the City Council must weigh in.

“What about the City Council’s priorities?” she said. “There are a lot of factors that may provide pressure on the city going forward.”

The Council speaker, Corey Johnson, suggested that the mayor needed to prioritize some of the city’s most intractable problems such as affordable housing and homelessness.

“I can’t control what the mayor does,” said Johnson, also a candidate for mayor in 2021. “But on the Council, we are going to continue to lead on the big ideas.”

Shortly before announcing his budget, de Blasio was joined at City Hall by Richard Carranza, the city schools chancellor, to celebrate a bright spot for his administration: The four-year high school graduation rate rose to 77.3% last year, up from 68.4% in 2014.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .