Posted on 05/12/2013 12:33:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In a twist of irony, “Big Government” Bloomberg has admitted that NYC is at the edge of a fiscal precipice.
There is no practical ways to pay our workforce given the current environment, current tax structure, current other obligations we have more than what we have been doing, with the possible exception of dramatically raising taxes”.
Bloomberg points to public service unions as being among the biggest roadblocks to any meaningful fiscal health in the city.
Currently in NYC, most of the unions are refusing to negotiate contracts right now. This is completely legal. If the contract is not re-negotiated, the current terms continue. The unions are trying to hold out for more money until a new mayor is elected, in the hopes that a new mayor will cave to their demands. One thing Bloomberg wants—which is met with hostility—is to “force union workers to pay part of the health care costs”. Imagine that! “Unless we do something those expenses will bankrupt us,” Bloomberg said.
Additionally, when Bloomberg mentions “obligations”, he’s talking largely about the pension system.
Living in NYC, I am no fan of Bloomberg’s at all. I do want to give him a little (tiny) credit—he’s been sounding the alarm about this for the past few years. Even back in 2010, Bloomberg told CrainsNY that “city pension funds have set unrealistically high assumed rates of return on investments, at 8%, which may require spending more than has been budgeted for retirement benefits…The pension system itself provides defined benefits that can’t be reduced under guarantees the Legislature has placed in the state constitution. While it permits new, less-expensive benefit tiers for future employees, savings wouldn’t be realized for 10 or 15 years”
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Wonder what they’ll cut first. Surveillance society and big brother, or important infrastructure like bridges, roads and transportation.
No sympathy for the rich Socialist
Instead of trying to take guns away from all Americans... and Big Gulps away from New Yorkers.... he could have been addressing the union and municipal employee issues
How this Socialist got rich....is mind boggling
Pretty easy solution to libs which come naturally: raise taxes. Bloomie will do it. They did it here in Socal.
Bloomberg will give the next mayor of New York City a balanced budget to begin the new mayoralty, however, what is missing from the balance sheet could present the most trouble for his successor. Over 100 contracts with unionized city workers have not been renegotiated for years, and liabilities are accruing for the city.
Auto-renewing of the contracts have keep city services going, but workers have not received pay raises or other benefits due to a series of failed negotiations. Tight finances beginning with the 2008 economic downturn broke a cycle of regular pay increases, setting the scene for today’s growing conundrum, where Bloomberg is insisting the city does not have the money to pay for raises not awarded in years past.
The unions want retroactive pay raises—at an estimated cost of $7.8 billion. Labor wages, health benefits, and pensions for city workers as a whole represent 55 percent of the fiscal year 2014 budget.
Bloomberg has offered a raise going forward, albeit smaller than what the unions want, but he refuses to consider paying out billions in back pay. The fiscal year 2014 budget includes $265 million set aside in the city’s labor reserve for union raises of 1.25 percent.
The unions are the second biggest roadblocks. The first biggest are the politicians themselves.
“The pension system itself provides defined benefits that can’t be reduced under guarantees the Legislature has placed in the state constitution.”
Well....the state constitution is an “evolving document”, right liberals?
NYC has a fiscal crisis every other year. It gets kicked down the road, the politicians pat themselves on the back for fixing the problem, a couple years later NYC has yet another fiscal crisis. Repeat. This has been going on for decades.
It is easy as falling off a log. Tax every finncial transaction made on computers located in the city or terminals located in the city $1
I suppose it would be unseemly to hop, in place, from foot to foot, while chanting “nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.”
Good. Watching smug new yorkers flounder is entertainment. Bloomie should pitch in a few billion of his own cash.
Legalization (and heavy taxation) of drugs, gambling and prostitution is the only way that the city and state can be saved!
Tax all billionaire mayor’s estates at 100% and make it retroactive.
NYC has a fiscal crisis every other year. It gets kicked down the road, the politicians pat themselves on the back for fixing the problem, a couple years later NYC has yet another fiscal crisis. Repeat. This has been going on for decades.
I predict the pattern will be repeated until some self-appointed genius cooks up the brilliant idea of demanding the nation bail out New York City.
NYC union pensions and benefits have just killed my husband’s job. Union employees also feel no need to actually do their jobs; they drink and backtalk their employers and bring frivolous law suits. They are part and parcel of what is killing America.
One must turn to the Ancient Byzantines for Tax solutions—They had a thing called a Sky Tax, a tax for walking around under the sky! The thing they need to Tax is poor people! If you want to end something—Tax it. Every welfare person should give 10 % to the city. pay it or move out.
If they want more taxes that will be the last straw. They can pay the unions,provide social services to illegals and go straight to hell without me.
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