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Bloomberg slashing city budget
Plans include cutting hundreds of jobs, closing dental clinics for poor

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press
First published in print: Wednesday, November 5, 2008

NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg is canceling the police academy's next class, cutting hundreds of jobs, closing dental health clinics for poor children and taking other drastic steps to tighten the budget amid an economic slowdown.
     
A Bloomberg administration official said the mayor will outline those cuts and others on Wednesday when he gives an update to the $59 billion budget. He will announce the city is reducing its work force by more than 3,000 employees: 500 through layoffs and the rest through attrition. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the update had not been officially announced.

Bloomberg was asked at a news conference Tuesday to preview his budget plan, and while he did not give details, he said he would likely ask for a "slowdown, but not really for a meltdown."

"We don't know just how deep this recession is going to go or for how long," he said.

By using his budget knife on key jobs and services such as new police officers, education employees and the dental health clinics, which serve 17,000 children each year, Bloomberg is making some politically risky moves. It sets up a more difficult environment as he prepares to run for re-election next year.

The billionaire independent mayor last month announced that he believes the city needs him to stay on past the end of 2009, when his second term ends, to manage the long-term effects of the financial crisis and economic downturn. In just a matter of weeks, he convinced the City Council to change the law that limited him and other officeholders to two consecutive terms, and on Monday he signed the bill allowing him to run for mayor again.

Bloomberg, who has enjoyed approval ratings in the 70s since his re-election in 2005, may see those numbers fall back to the levels of his first term, when he was making cuts and raising taxes to help reverse the city's post-Sept. 11 economic woes. His political opponents will no doubt say the city cannot survive without the programs and jobs he is cutting.

The mayor told reporters Tuesday that the belt-tightening he's announcing this week "certainly is not going to be the last step." If revenues fall more than what is projected, he said, the city will take additional action....http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=736395&category=STATE