WNYC: A Spring Rite: The NYC Budget Dance

By Cindy Rodriguez

Year in and year out, New York City’s budget process works something like this: the mayor says the city has a deficit that runs in the billions of dollars; he uses the deficit as impetus to shed fire houses, reduce library hours, shrink subsidized day care centers and more; the city holds hearings and people protest; eventually — through negotiations with the mayor — the city council restores a significant portion of what the mayor proposed taking out.

The beginning of this spring ritual was on display at the release of Bloomberg’s executive budget earlier this month. “You have to wait and see what we do,” Bloomberg answered when asked about the loss of roughly 15,000 child care slots. “Like I told you, we will come to an agreement collaboratively with the city council on or before June 30th.”

Read more at: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2012/may/14/spring-rite-nyc-budget-dance/