The Progressive Caucus rejects Mayor de Blasio’s negotiation tactic of threatening to lay off 22,000 city employees and to cut essential discretionary-funded programs as we approach the deadline of an unprecedented budget negotiation process. The caucus recognizes that we are facing significant revenue shortfalls for the FY21 budget. However, this budget cannot be balanced by depriving services from the communities most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis – seniors, youth, immigrants, communities of color, LGBTQ communities, and low-income New Yorkers.
What New Yorkers need most right now is a pathway to a just recovery from this crisis, one that eliminates over-policing in our communities and prioritizes services for the most vulnerable and hardest hit. An equitable solution to this problem has already been provided by the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have taken to the streets in the past several weeks. We stand with those demanding at least $1 billion in meaningful reductions in the bloated NYPD budget and to redistribute those funds to programs that provide jobs, healthcare, education, and increasing the safety net for under-served communities. We ask the Mayor to make the courageous decisions needed to prioritize the people over the police department.
