CITYWIDE

BLOOMBERG OPPONENTS ATTACK MAYOR’S BUDGET PLAN

A day after the Department of Education quietly announced it was abandoning the formula it had devised to even out school funding, two of Mayor Bloomberg’s political opponents attacked the current administration’s budget plan.

In a statement, Fernando Ferrer said: “The mayor’s decision to abandon efforts to equalize school funding is another loud statement that our New York City lacks the resources to solve our education crisis.” Mr. Ferrer took the opportunity to trumpet his own proposal of offering to pay 25% of the $14 billion court-ordered bill in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case.

A Bloomberg campaign spokesman, Stuart Loeser, said, “Freddy’s $4 billion tax debacle would tax middle-class retirement investments, decimate a New York industry, and cost us thousands of jobs. It’s no wonder it was criticized by every Democrat in the state. Mike Bloomberg has a better solution – fighting to get the billions Albany owes us before putting our own money on the table.”

Another Democratic mayoral candidate, Rep. Anthony Weiner, said information about how much each school is spending on personnel versus Mr. Bloomberg’s “experimental programs” should be publicly available.

“We need a funding system that lets schools respond in a smart way to the challenges they face, which can be very, very different from one district to another,” he said.

The chancellor’s press secretary, Jerry Russo, said school budgets are, in fact, publicly available. “The school budget process is more transparent and more comprehensive than ever before,” Mr. Russo said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

MAN GETS 25 YEARS TO LIFE FOR KILLING PREGNANT GIRLFRIEND

A man who was convicted of murdering his pregnant girlfriend after she insisted on having their baby was sentenced yesterday to 25 years to life after declaring that babies are a “blessing” and that he loves children.

State Supreme Court Justice James Yates, saying his only question was whether the defendant acted alone, imposed the maximum sentence on Emmanuel Pierre, 26, convicted in April of second-degree murder in the strangulation death of Sandra Bonaventure, a 21-year-old sophomore at the State University of New York in New Paltz. She was found dead on June 25, 2002, her body stuffed into tightly knotted garbage bags on a West 56th Street sidewalk a block from the Hudson River. She was seven months pregnant.

Given an opportunity to speak, Pierre declared he was innocent. While Pierre spoke, several members of the victim’s family, weeping, fled the courtroom.

“This is one of the most unforgivable crimes that have come before me in 13 years on the bench,” the judge said.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

REPORT: ON-TIME BUDGET COULD BE $2.1 BILLION SHORT

A report yesterday by the office of the New York State comptroller found that the budget state lawmakers passed in late March could come up $2.1 billion short by the end of the fiscal year, and it is likely to result in a $4.9 billion budget gap the following fiscal year.

The report said the enacted budget increases the state’s outstanding debt by $7.7 billion over last year’s level and that the state will have more than $55 billion in outstanding debt by the end of fiscal 2010. It said New York will be spending nearly $6 billion in debt service each year by fiscal 2010. The report blamed the dramatic increase in current and projected debt on the use of non-recurring sources of cash to fund long-term spending, delays in the payment of debt, and the use of debt to mask increased spending.

The report paints a particularly bleak picture of the future of the state’s transportation infrastructure, predicting New York will have less money to spend on roads and bridges precisely when repairs will be needed most.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

TRI-STATE

BRONX MAN CHARGED WITH ROBBING ELDERLY WOMEN

HACKENSACK, N.J. – Authorities have charged two men with stealing diamond rings from elderly women in a series of armed robberies.

Fatmir Nezaj, 48, of the Bronx, and Isni Gjuraj, 24, of Stamford, Conn., were charged in state Superior Court with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. Authorities believe the two men also may have robbed women in Westchester County, Montgomery County, Md., and possibly other states.

The men targeted elderly women shopping at supermarkets whom they observed wearing expensive diamond rings, authorities said. They then followed the women home and robbed them.

Officers from the New York City Police Department and Bergen County’s joint anti-robbery task force arrested Mr. Nezaj on May 4 after they observed him following a 79-year-old woman home from a supermarket in Queens. He was carrying a loaded .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun, police said.

Mr. Nezaj is being held in the Queens County Jail under $300,000 cash bail or $500,000 bond, with $1 million bail set in Bergen County.

– Associated Press