Christine Quinn dips into Retiree Trust Fund for City Employees

From Crains :

Council eyes trust-fund raid; watchdog barks

The City Council wants to dip further into a trust fund created for retired city employees so it can stave off “decimating” cuts to education, social services and public safety.

In its response Friday to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's preliminary 2012 budget, the council wrote that it would not seek to raise taxes or cut capital spending but would instead set its sights on a one-shot.

“We must give consideration to a measured additional use of the Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund,” the council wrote, referring to the account it helped create in 2007. The fund was designed to offset the ever-expanding unfunded liability created by covering retirees' health care.

The city stashed $2.5 billion of surplus in the fund during its first two years, but it has since siphoned money from it to close budget deficits. The mayor will draw down $395 million from the fund this year and $672 million next year, according to the Independent Budget Office.

The council has now signaled its apparent desire to use even more money from the fund to pay for programs that would otherwise be lost. But one watchdog group growled at the idea.

The Citizens Budget Commission, which tracks the city's finances, has urged the council on multiple occasions not to raid the fund. “This is not a rainy-day fund,” said Maria Doulis, an analyst with the group. “It's not a surplus fund. It was established to fund retiree benefits.”

Doulis added, “The council is not using this money for its intended purpose.” The mayor has used the trust fund to pay pension expenses, which arguably also stretches the defined purpose of the fund.

A spokeswoman for Council Speaker Christine Quinn would not comment further on the council's plans for the fund, or say how much additional money it might seek to take from it.

As of June 2010, the unfunded liability of retiree health care was $70 billion, according to the commission.

Budget Cuts In New York City Will Result In Massive NYPD And FDNY Layoffs

What Does Christine Quinn Do to Stop Mayor Bloomberg's scorched earth plan to Keep Laying Off More and More Police and Firefighters ? Nothing, as usual.

In newly-released plans of how the New York City plans to cut important services that underpin public safety and public health, a growing outrage is being expressed that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's budget cuts are going too far.

''The city's Independent Budget Office projected yesterday that by June 30, 2012, the Police Department will have shrunk to 34,413 uniformed personnel, a record low since the 34,825 that were on the force on that same date 20 years ago when crime rates in the city were near epic highs,'' reported The New York Post.

"Crime statistics show there is a breaking point, and we're at it," City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, told The Post. "We can't absorb any more public safety cuts."

''The IBO further reported the Fire Department will have 10,282 uniformed personnel on June 30, 2012, down from 10,911 this year, and the lowest level since at least 1980, when the IBO first started tracking the numbers.''

Everybody seems to be outraged by the proposed budget cuts, and the impact it would have on teachers, police, firefighters, and even the City Morgue. But nobody is doing about the tens of millions of dollars disappearing into the shady black holes of IT contracts. Or what about the failed $2 billion Unified Call Taker-911 dispatch and emergency call system ? Who is the only person in New York City government, who can stand up to Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo ? If you are counting on Speaker Quinn, better go looking for another champion, because she doesn't do anything to stand up for essential city service cuts. Just look at how Speaker Quinn has done nothing to even save St. Vincent's Hospital from turning into luxury condominiums.

Bloomberg-Quinn Budget Cuts

Stringer Snipes at Quinn Over Budget Cuts

In the wake of the announcements that Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to layoff 6,000 teachers, cut daycare and senior citizen centers, and cut the budgets of independently elected officials, like the offices of the public advocate and the borough presidents, politicians and community leaders are decrying the mayor's cuts as politically-motivated.

For example, The New York Post questions why Mayor Bloomberg is blaming Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the loss of $600 million in state funding. In an NY1 broadcast, the mayor even called Gov. Cuomo ignorant about the city's budget.

Meanwhile, in respect of the proposed budget cuts to the offices of the public advocate and borough presidents has outraged Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

“It is outrageous that we are part of this political budget dance that impacts our ability to do our job effectively,” Stringer said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “And both the mayor and the council leadership have been complicit in this attempt to silence independent elected officeholders by going after our budget.”

Mr. Stringer told The Journal that under the twin administrations of Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the annual process for setting the budgets for the borough presidents and the public advocate has become the “most politicized” in a generation.

Moreover, that the mayor seems obsessed with laying off public school teachers has worried others whether the mayor is, indeed, making biased budget cuts.

"His complete insistence on teacher layoffs seems bizarre to us at this point. We think it's more of a political game and scaring people," Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told NY1 television, according to Yahoo! News.

Separately, proposed budget cuts to public libraries have triggered a backlash : is Mayor Bloomberg attacking freedom of expression, education, and access to information ?