New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is planning to cut 3,000 jobs from the city work force and raise taxes to help plug a budget shortfall expected to reach $4 billion in the next two years.
The job cuts — through layoffs and attrition — include 1,000 police officers and nearly 500 jobs at the Department of Education.
"The gravity of the budget situation requires us to propose both deep spending cuts and revenue increases," Bloomberg said.
Plans include eliminating a $400 property tax rebate homeowners have received annually and the temporary 7 percent property tax cut implemented last year, Newsday reports.
The mayor also proposed raising the income tax by either 7.5 percent or 15 percent, according to The New York Times.
"Every city agency must push each dollar further," Bloomberg said. "We're going to do that, and doing that means making hard choices that will not be popular with everyone or perhaps anyone."
Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the city council’s Public Safety Committee, isn’t pleased by the mayor’s plans.
He told Newsday, “The quickest way to hurt the economy even more is to make the streets less safe.”
And Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute said: “Increasing the personal income tax would be a disaster for the city. It's hard to overestimate that fact. We've already got the highest local personal income tax in the nation."
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