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BOROUGH PRESIDENT STATEMENT ON MAYOR BLOOMBERG'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS AND INCOME TAX REFORM

“As Borough President, I understand that Mayor Bloomberg has to make some incredibly difficult and painful choices to balance this year’s budget, but we in Brooklyn are very concerned that some of these proposed budget cuts will reduce essential services and hurt tens of thousands of Brooklynites. We want to minimize the impact on those most in need. Cuts have to be made, but these cuts may inflict permanent damage on a very vulnerable segment of our population.”

“Even though I disagree with the Mayor on some of his proposals, I applaud his idea to reform the City’s personal income tax structure to tax non-residents who work in the City and for increased Medicaid reimbursements. These two revenue enhancement measures were something that I called for with the Brooklyn Borough Board earlier this year.”

“Additional revenue enhancement measures that I have also previously recommended include streamlining the City’s contract and procurement process, a comprehensive review of the City’s revenue collection procedures to ensure that every penny is collected and fraud is eliminated, the collection of franchise fees from all telecommunications providers, more efficient billing by the Emergency Medical Service for ambulance services and the re-institution of the Stock Transfer Incentive Fund. All of these measures taken together would provide the City with hundreds of millions of desperately needed dollars.”

“In the next several days, I will be reviewing these proposals with the Brooklyn City Council delegation to make sure that our borough will continue to receive the vital services that are needed to serve our 2.5 million residents.”