Council members, who must approve a balanced budget by the June 30 end of the fiscal year, pledged to restore some of the proposed teacher and social-service cuts. They said they would seek cost savings in the city’s contracts with outside consultants and through union concessions.
“This is going to be a very difficult negotiation,” said Councilman Dominic Recchia, a Brooklyn Democrat who heads the finance committee. “We won’t allow the mayor to hurt the core services.”
Comptroller John Liu said he would “scrutinize and restructure when necessary” each administration contract to find savings.
“It should be noted that throughout the economic crisis, city agencies have spent billions of dollars on high-priced outside consultants resulting in runaway spending on technology- related contracts,” Liu said in an e-mailed response to the mayor’s presentation.
The mayor's response:
The city hires consultants when it seeks expertise that agencies lack or to fill temporary gaps in staffing, Bloomberg said. “It’s an easy target” for critics, he said.
Oh, do you mean expertise like this?
Or this?
Or how about this?
The only "expertise" these people Bloomberg is handing millions to have shown is how to steal a ton of money from the city, over bill taxpayers for services partially rendered or not rendered at all, and come back to the trough for more and more dough (sometimes with the help of major vendors to the city like IBM and Verizon, sometimes with the help of Bloomberg administration cronies like Joel Bondy.)
That is "expertise" we can do without, Mr. Mayor.
I hope the City Council and the Comptroller really push back against this budget and make New Yorkers aware just how much money Bloomberg is handing over to outside consultants and how that money could be used to save teachers, lower class sizes, and provide a decent education for students.
The oligarch and his budget must be stopped.
No comments:
Post a Comment