McMahon is warning that the local economic outlook is “the grimmest on record,” thanks to the pandemic — yet you’d barely know it from the budget Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled Thursday. And this after years of soaring budgets: City-funded outlays through 2020 rose 32 percent since de Blasio took office. Yet de Blasio’s plan relies heavily on short-term patches — back surpluses, raiding reserves, re-estimating costs downward and federal aid not likely to recur. But even he now projects three straight yearly shortfalls of about $5 billion each after next year. And many of his cuts are really just savings from programs suspended because of the virus, such as summer pools.

Source: The Local April 16, 2020 23:37 UTC