By Adam Pincus
The annual Borough Board's public hearing on the budget is provided for by the City Charter to give community boards, locally impacted groups and citizens the opportunity to express their opinions on how the city spends it money.”It went beautifully,” Borough President Helen Marshall said. “People who have never requested funding before,” came to the hearing, she said. The testimony is used in developing the Borough Board's budget priorities for the fiscal year beginning July 1, Marshall said.She said speakers left her with about a six-inch stack of requests following the hearing that lasted until 8 p.m..”We go through every statement,” she said, in order to review the applications for funding.The meeting began with the 14 Queens community boards presenting their needs statements for the year.They were followed by the most active of the non-profit, educational and cultural institutions in the borough, including the Queens public libraries, Queens Theater in the Park and the Association for the Advancement of Blind and Retarded Inc. Each speaker laid out a defense for their funding, then explained what their needs were.The director of the Queens Library, Thomas Galante, said the system's first priority was to turn back the $1.1 million funding reduction in the city budget proposed for the current fiscal year 2006. He said another priority was the restoration of $11 million cut from the 2007 budget, which he would like included as part of the base line budget.”We must end the annual budget dance that drains our resources and ultimately winds up diminishing library funding,” he said.Jeff Rosenstock, director of the Queens Theater, said that the $289,000 his organization received from the city represented only 10 percent of the institution's annual budget. He said he was asking for an additional $75,000 in expense funds to support the rehiring of development employees who could generate additional funding.John Frank, the development director of the Association for the Advancement of Blind and Retarded, requested $250,000 in funding to cut a funding deficit in half.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
