Telegraphing his pitches like a washed up hurler, Mayor Michael Bloomberg let fly with his planned cuts to close the city’s budget gap while leaving multi-billion-dollar surplus reserves for next year.
Bloomberg’s proposal for the Fiscal Year 2012 Executive Budget includes shuttering 20 fire companies; police ranks will shrink to 34,309 from 50,008; 4,100 teachers would be laid off and another 2,000 would be allowed to retire without replacement and other services like sanitation, parks and transportation would experience service cuts, extra charges and higher fees.
Our elected officials have united in calling on the mayor to spare the children and our youngest teachers and put an end to crowded classrooms citywide.
We agree, and implore Bloomberg to use some of the surplus funds and stop the teacher layoffs – for at least for two years, while working on changing the Last In First Out policy of the Teachers’ Union and Albany.
