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What if we lose too many rich people" To the delight of the city?s rat population (and the dismay of the rest of us), garbage was not getting picked up as quickly as usual this summer. Facing a sudden budget shortfall resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council cut $106 million from the Department of Sanitation?s budget in June, leading to reduced trash collection. The mayor has since walked back some of the cuts under pressure from business executives. But the piles of garbage ? literal and proverbial ? may only grow bigger. This may be the beginning of a prolonged budget crisis for the city.
New York is facing an estimated $13.5 billion revenue loss through 2022. Typically, it takes three or four years for a recession to impact the city?s tax revenue. But because the pandemic closed businesses and confined people to their apartments (or drove them out of town) almost overnight, there was an immediate impact on the city?s tax collection. ?This [crisis] came fast and furious,? said Maria Doulis, vice-president of the Citizens Budget Commission. ?It was unprecedented to suffer a steep decline in current-year revenue in the middle of the fiscal year. Now it?s very serious.? Beginning in mid-March, sales and income-tax revenue fell precipitously, requiring the state to make immediate adjustments to the budget. At the end of June, the City Council and the mayor agreed to a budget for 2021 that included a variety of c...