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New York City’s $98.7 billion budget deal contains just $200 million more to fight crime amid a surge in violence — as well as $100 million to house and employ ex-cons — but not a nickel for additional cops.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) on Tuesday announced what they vaguely called “targeted investments to break the cycle of incarceration and reduce gun violence” that will use “housing and employment as an anti-violence measure” — working around the NYPD.
And even though President Biden last week said cities could use federal COVID-19 relief funds to hire more cops, de Blasio said the Big Apple was taking a different tack amid a surge in shootings that includes Sunday’s wounding of a tourist in broad daylight in Times Square and two kids who miraculously avoided gang-related gunfire in the Bronx earlier this month.
“We took the stimulus funds, we focused them on ways to create growth in our economy — to create jobs, to create a lot more city revenue that will sustain our future,” de Blasio said during a City Hall news conference.
“That’s our focus.”
During a Q&A session with reporters, de Blasio said the NYPD budget — which was reduced by $1 billion last year amid “Defund the police” protests — was being increased by just $200 million, which he described as “police reform money.”
De Blasio said that “a big piece” would pay for information technology but conceded that the bulk — $166 million — was going to police overtime.
“We worked together on OT. We reduced overtime a lot,” he said.
“We put in a number that we now believe is the realistic overtime number.”
Another $100 million-plus is being allocated to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to fund the “anti-violence” social spending touted by de Blasio and Johnson.
Those programs were listed dead last on an official summary of the fiscal 2022 budget — despite a recent Post poll that showed crime was the top issue among the Big Apple’s Democratic voters.
The spending plans include $57 million to provide “reentry housing with healthcare and employment counseling” to ex-cons, who are euphemistically described as “justice involved New Yorkers returning to the community.”
Another $24 million will go to a new “Precision Employment Initiative” that will offer summer jobs to 1,000 people who are “most at risk” in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Mott Haven, the Bronx; Brownsville, Brooklyn; and South Jamaica, Queens.
Parolees and other ex-cons will also be eligible for “transitional employment” through a $6.6 million expansion of the city’s “Jail to Jobs” program.
The document notes that the NYPD has reassigned 200 cops who had been working desk jobs “to the field full time, specifically assigned to high violence commands.”
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