Here’s how the Mayor’s proposed budget cuts will affect Queens
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Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his fiscal year 2021 executive budget Thursday. Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
By David Brand and Victoria Merlino
Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed steep spending cuts in his executive budget plan on Thursday, with the city facing a revenue shortfall as it contends with a burgeoning economic crisis related to the coronavirus.
De Blasio’s proposed $89.3 billion budget would reduce city spending by nearly 4 percent, while cutting or delaying several programs and initiatives. “There will certainly be more tough choices ahead,” de Blasio warned during a City Hall press conference Tuesday.
The budget plan would have specific effects on Queens residents. Here is how the proposed cuts could impact the borough:
3K Delays
The city will delay expansion of 3K For All in four school districts, including District 29 in Queens, in order to save $43 million in Fiscal Year 2021. The program currently provides free, full-day education programs for 3-year-olds in 12 school districts, including Districts 23 and 27 in Queens.
"Every family should be able to give their child the world, and expanding 3-K will help us set even more of our students on the path to success,” de Blasio said in February.
But families in Cambria Heights, Hollis, Laurelton, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens and St. Albans will have to wait to participate.
Ditching compost
The city intends to save $21 million by suspending the curbside organics collection program administered by the Department of Sanitation. Neighborhoods in nine Queens community boards are enrolled in the initiative, which enables residents in buildings with fewer than 10 units to set their organic waste in brown bins for pick up by DSNY workers. The city then turns that material into compost.
Organic material — including food scraps, soiled paper and yard waste — make up more than one-third of residential trash, according to a waste characterization study conducted by the city in 2017.
“These programs should be seen as essential services, cornerstones of our climate mitigation strategy and a source of good jobs for communities that will desperately need them,” said Justin Wood, director of organizing and strategic research at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest in an op-ed for Gotham Gazette Wednesday.
Empty pools
Queens’ seven public pools — along with pools in the other four boroughs — will be empty this summer, a coronavirus-driven decision that will save the city $12 million.
Beaches, too
Beaches along the Rockaway Peninsula and elsewhere in New York City may not open this summer either, de Blasio Thursday.
Keeping the beaches closed would promote social distancing and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, said de Blasio, who encouraged New Yorkers to “lower expectations” for how to spend the summer months.
“Imagine Coney Island in the summer,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people packed tightly together, I don’t see that happening any time soon.”
De Blasio acknowledged that people can still visit the beach to walk along the shoreline or take a dip, but the “notion of having lifeguards and people coming to the beach as normal, we don’t have that in our sights yet.”
No jobs for kids
The city will cut the Summer Youth Employment Program, which provides jobs for 75,000 young people between ages 14 and 24, in order to save $124 million.
The COVID-19 economic shutdown prompted the decision to suspend the nation’s largest municipal youth employment program, said Bill Chong, commissioner of the Department of Youth and Community Development, which administers the jobs initiative.
“Unfortunately, the uncertainty over how COVID-19 will continue to affect social distancing guidelines, worksite availability, and provider and site staffing as we head into late spring and summer makes it difficult to ensure that [the program] can be operated safely and efficiently,” Chong wrote in a letter to nonprofits, Chalkbeat reported.
Several Queens nonprofit organizations, including Commonpoint Queens and Rockaway Youth Task Force, participate in the program, and young employees earn vital workforce experience along with the state minimum wage.
CUNY ASAP
A CUNY program designed to support associate’s degree students who may otherwise face trouble graduating will be delayed.
Incoming freshmen enrolled in the CUNY ASAP program will have to wait to receive the MetroCards, tuition waivers, money for books, career counseling and personalized counseling that are part of the program.
The cut will affect CUNY community colleges, including Queensborough and LaGuardia, and will save the city $20 million
