Mayor Called On To Cut City Government Staff

The chairman of the fiscal advocacy group Citizens Budget Commission, James Lipscomb, is calling on Mayor Bloomberg to cut city government staff and rearrange property taxes in his final budget in order to carry the city through difficult economic times. In a letter to Mr. Bloomberg yesterday, Mr. Lipscomb wrote that from the start of the mayor's first term to December 2007, the city has taken on 3,000 additional full-time municipal workers. He pointed to the city's police department as an example of operating efficiently with fewer staff members and urged that other agencies follow suit .

In addition, Mr. Lipscomb wrote that the city's tax burden "remains too high and discourages economic development." He suggested changing the property tax to exempt less small residential properties as a means of more equitably distributing the tax load.