Bloomberg to Albany: Give City 'Fair Share'

Mayor Bloomberg is calling on state lawmakers make sure the city gets its "fair share" from Governor Spitzer's budget plan, which Mr. Bloomberg says shortchanges the city by about $500 million.

Testifying in Albany today, the mayor said the state had backed away from its past promises of funding for host of areas, including education and a revenue sharing program, and he balked at Mr. Spitzer's call for the city to pay the state a higher fee for administering the city's personal income tax program.

"Talk about chutzpah. Some things just defy description. You couldn't put them in a book. Nobody would believe it," he said, after arguing that the fee should be shrinking because more New Yorkers are filing their income taxes electronically.

Mr. Bloomberg has said that a 7% property tax cut that would save New York City property owners about $1 billion depends upon financial support from the state, but despite expectations he would use the tax cut to urge lawmakers to send more money downstate, he did not make that appeal during his testimony.

The mayor told reporters after testifying that the fate of the tax depends not only on the state's support, but on help from the federal government, the health of the economy, and cooperation from municipal unions. He would not go so far as to say that the tax cut would be scrapped if the state did not hand over the funds city officials had been anticipating.

Mr. Bloomberg did press lawmakers to allow the city to raise the tax on cigarettes by 50 cents, a move that would lift the total city and state tax on cigarettes to $3.50.

"Make no mistake about it, if you don't raise the tax we are killing people," he said before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. "There is no other way to view it."

He noted a 52% reduction in teenage smoking in the city over the last six years, saying that every study on the issue shows that the decline is a result of the higher cost of cigarettes. "It is a simple thing to do to save an enormous number of lives," he said.

Mr. Bloomberg also hammered state lawmakers for reneging on a commitment to support capital funding for school repairs and renovations, saying city taxpayers agreed to put $6.5 billion into school construction over five years and the state had promised to match that.

"If the state doesn't match that, it simply means we are going to build and renovate half the number of schools," he said.

Mr. Bloomberg zeroed in on the lower than expected revenue-sharing money allotted to the city. Last year the city was the only locality in the state to be pulled from the revenue-sharing money pot, but the state later restored $20 million for the city and committed to giving the city its full share this year, Mr. Bloomberg said. A year later, he said, "we find that the instead of this promised full share, we're budgeted to receive only half of what we're due," about $165 million.

Mr. Spitzer said in a statement today that the economic downturn "demands fiscal restraint from leaders across the country" and argued that the city fared well in his budget, receiving a net increase of $1.2 billion over last year.

"I understand the city did not get everything it wanted but rocky economic times mean that every recipient of state funds must share the responsibility of across the board belt tightening," he said.