Mayor Bloomberg finally has some budget news to celebrate: the $2 billion deficit projected for next year has slightly declined.
But the mayor wasn’t donning any party hats.
“We are roughly where we thought we would be,” he said.
“Tax revenues are slightly ahead of projections. Some of our expenses are slightly ahead of projections. I think the numbers will show roughly instead of $2 billion it may be $1.8 or $1.9 billion, the same order of magnitude.”
Details of the mid-year budget modification were to be released today.
Insiders said Bloomberg has to chart a tricky fiscal course to demonstrate that the city’s economy is rebounding – but not to the point where it could afford substantial pay hikes without concessions from municipal unions.
So the mayor added a dose of gloom.
“We have a big problem going forward,” he said. “It is more complex because a lot of the cuts we made are recurring and so it’s harder to maintain services without spending more money.”