The City Council was set to approve a $ 75 billion budget Wednesday night that will set a new, more progressive tone for spending over the next year.
Negotiated between Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, the budget has grown 7% over last year and adds many new programs, but it also represents a compromise on the Council’s top priorities.
It does not include the 1,000 new cops the body demanded, instead moving 200 officers from desk jobs to the street. And it offers free lunch for middle school students, instead of all public school students as requested by the Council.
The new spending plan is set to take effect July 1.
“We feel great about this budget and our commitment to fiscal prudence,” de Blasio said Wednesday.
The Council tacked on $ 236.7 million in spending for a variety of programs, including $ 18 million for day care and vouchers, $ 10.9 million for CUNY scholarships, $ 4.9 million to hire lawyers for immigrants facing deportation, $ 3.5 million for street cleaning and $ 1 million for tree pruning.
Separately, there’s $ 50 million the pols dish out in controversial “member items” to nonprofits in their districts. The money went out despite Mayor de Blasio’s onetime vow to abolish the pool of pork.
But the formula for the grants was shaken up this year to make the funding more equal. Every member got somewhere from $ 685,000 to $ 760,000, depending on the number of poor people in their district. That’s a departure from last year, when totals ranged from $ 363,964 to $ 1.56 million, with the highest amounts going to allies of the speaker — and enemies getting stiffed.
According to an analysis by good-government group Citizens Union, 36 of the 51 districts got more money in the new system than they did before.
With Jennifer Fermino
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