Mayor, Council Speaker Express Optimism On Budget Talks; Early Accord Possible
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A budget agreement could come early this year – and it may be sealed with a kiss.
The Bloomberg administration and the City Council have until Friday to agree on a budget, but an accord may be announced today or tomorrow, council sources say.
Annual budget negotiations typically end with the mayor and the council speaker shaking hands in the City Hall rotunda, but with Christine Quinn serving as the first female speaker, Mayor Bloomberg has said the ceremonial handshake may become a kiss.
The mayor has proposed a $52.7 billion budget, and the talks center on how much money will be added in program cuts that the council wants restored and in new and expanded initiatives being pushed by individual council members and the speaker.
The two sides are close enough that council officials are hoping to have an agreement today so that the budget can be printed and reviewed in time for a vote to occur in a scheduled meeting on Wednesday, council sources close to the talks said. The more likely scenario is that a resolution will happen tomorrow, in which case the council vote will probably occur Thursday, the sources said.
“Tomorrow’s going to be a key day,” the chairman of the council’s Finance Committee, David Weprin, said. Not wanting to be seen as negotiating in the press, Mr. Weprin and other members of the council’s negotiating team would not discuss specific initiatives or dollar amounts. By law, the budget must be in place by the end of June for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Last year, Mr. Bloomberg and the speaker, Gifford Miller, announced an agreement after 10 p.m. on June 28.
Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn were all smiles yesterday as they walked together in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride March, for which Ms. Quinn, also the first openly gay speaker, served as a grand marshal. Both expressed optimism about the budget talks. “They’re going very well. They’re right where they should be,” Ms. Quinn said. “Internally, and as it relates to the other side of the hall, we’re having lots of productive discussions.”
The mayor played down the perception that budget negotiations had been acrimonious. “For the last four years the press has always reported rancorous negotiations, and in fact they’ve never been,” he said. “We’ve always come up with an on-time budget, and we will do so this year.”
