Budget
Cutting the Police Budget Means Revising the Role Cops Play in Today’s NYC
Holly DeMuth |
Not everyone agrees on what defunding would mean, or what it would look like.
Not everyone agrees on what defunding would mean, or what it would look like.
The mayor’s decision to open parks but ban swimming has prompted an outcry. Meanwhile, proposed budget cuts to the already underfunded Parks Department threaten to strain the system during a summer when New Yorkers will likely flood to those spaces.
‘We are not asking to be prioritized over doctors and nurses. We simply need to be given the same resources.’
‘As we start to recover from this pandemic, it’s clear that New York City’s investments in natural areas need to be sustained for both their short-term benefits — like recreational space to socially distance and hundreds of green jobs — and long-term benefits — like climate change mitigation and adaptation.’
The program aimed to test ways to legalize basement apartments as a way to create new, sanctioned affordable housing units for tenants and help the moderate-income homeowners who might rent some of the spaces out.
The COVID-19 fiscal crisis has changed much about life in the city. Might it also weaken the prohibition against IOUs?
As formal budget negotiations get under way homeless advocates have outlined a series of long-term priorities and acute coronavirus-related needs they say the city must fund.
Youth advocates and SYEP participants say cancelling the program this summer will be a financial hit to low-income youth who rely on those jobs.
‘In these scary days of coronavirus, Central Park and the other green spaces in our city refresh and reassure us; even though we need to stay six feet apart due to social-distancing, the parks beckon.’
The mayor’s proposed cuts are ‘devastating and a further disadvantage for schools that were struggling before a pandemic. Combined with the concentrated impact of the virus on low-income families, it’s crippling.’