By Michael Morton
The cuts, if they take effect, would destroy needed services, Borough President Helen Marshall's chief of staff, Alex Rosa, told a room full of City Council members and community board heads.”This administration has a different view of reality,” she said.As part of the budget process, Marshall's office held a hearing last month to gauge the needs of community groups. After Bloomberg sent his initial budget proposal over, Marshall and her staff used the meeting last Thursday to craft the borough's response, which is supposed to be taken into consideration by the mayor and the City Council. Bloomberg now has until April to send his final proposal to the Council for its consideration.The preliminary plan calls for a $3.5 million cut that would force 17 youth development programs to close in Queens, Rosa said, including groups such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Reductions would also be made to the Beacon After School program, meaning 25,000 fewer students could be served, she said.For the elderly, Bloomberg wants to reduce discretionary funding for the five borough presidents from $7.5 million to $900,000. If the cut goes through, six senior centers, three Alzheimer's programs and hundreds of vans for mobile providers in Queens would be forced to close, Rosa said. She also warned that a pilot program in the Bronx that replaced daily hot meals for seniors with frozen dinners could be brought to the borough.”This year the mayor has virtually eliminated those funds,” Rosa said of the discretionary spending.Cuts were also proposed for cultural institutions and libraries in the borough, further jeopardizing hours of operation. In education, many Council members have criticized Bloomberg for cutting $1.3 billion in state matching funds from his preliminary budget for the five-year capital construction plan and have vowed to block such a proposal. However, the non-partisan Independent Budget Office said Bloomberg was bowing to the reality that the matching funds would not be coming from the state, the subject of an education lawsuit.To make up for the city's budget crunch, Marshall's office proposed penalizing those who do not make their house numbers clear as required by law and cracking down on those who do not pay their water and sewage bills. But services must be restored, Rosa demanded.”These are the priorities of Queens,” she said. “We want these programs funded.”Reach reporter Michael Morton by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
