Municipal Labor

When It Comes to Making Labor Contracts Readily Accessible, Albany’s Got Us Beat

1 Comment

Posted by Bernard O’Brien, August 13, 2009

More than 200,000 of the city’s municipal workers are members of labor unions. The wage and benefit levels set in the contracts for these workers make up a large share of the nearly $36 billion the Bloomberg Administration expects to spend on labor costs this year. Given the huge cost and the number of people affected, one might think that the terms set in these labor contracts would be online and readily accessible to analysts, researchers, and taxpayers in general. But the fact is you won’t find the contracts on the city’s Web site.

Putting labor contracts online is doable: for an example you have to look no further than Albany, where the state puts its contracts with union workers online along with other information related to employee compensation. In fact, the state site includes current as well as previous union contracts, some dating as far back as 1991.

The state Web site is available via Governor David Paterson’s Office of Employee Relations. The site is also accessible via the SeeThroughNY initiative sponsored by the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy at http://www.seethroughny.net.

The following questions can be answered by visiting the Governor’s Web site:

Which unions represent which state workers?
Taxpayers can determine that state police officers are represented by the Police Benevolent Association of the New York State Troopers, SUNY faculty members by United University Professions, and certain other categories of state workers by the Civil Service Employees Association. In total, 10 specific unions or negotiating units are identified on the Governor’s Web site.

How much do state workers earn?
The Governor’s Web site provides online access to both current and past state workforce labor contracts for each negotiating unit along with supporting documentation such as memoranda of agreement, salary schedules, and side letters associated with some labor contracts.

What other information related to the state workforce is available online?
The Governor’s Web site also provides certain demographic information such as breakdowns by age, length of service, and gender for each union representing state workers. An overall breakdown of state workers by race is also presented.

Here in New York City, some municipal labor contracts are available in hard copy and can be photocopied at City Hall Library located at 31 Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan. Yet none are available online for public review in the manner now made possible at the state level.

It should be noted that the city does annually publish its Civil List online each April. The most recent Civil List, an alphabetical snapshot of all city employees and their respective base salaries, can be accessed at www.nyc.gov/html/records/pdf/govpub/CIVIL_LIST_2008_Public.pdf.

New York City is often favorably compared with the state when it comes to matters such as budgetary transparency and fiscal reporting. But when it comes to information about labor contracts, the city has quite a ways to go to meet the standard being set by the state.

Health, Municipal Labor

Two Paramedics on an Ambulance—Only in New York

Posted by Bernard O’Brien, July 27, 2009

Each day in the city there about 880 serious medical emergencies reported over the 911 system which are deemed by Emergency Medical Services dispatchers to require response by highly trained paramedics. On average 15 of these daily calls are instead responded to by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) with less training because paramedics are not available.

Even when paramedics are available to respond, they can’t always do it as quickly as city officials want. The city has a goal of paramedics arriving within 10 minutes of a call 90 percent of the time. They hit that mark about 700 times a day—but they’d have to do it an additional 80 times a day to reach the goal.

Although a proposal announced last January by Mayor Bloomberg would perhaps help remedy these public safety concerns by changing the manner in which many fire department ambulances are staffed, the city has not yet been granted the state regulatory approval needed to implement the proposal. The city unsuccessfully sought this same change in 2005.

The proposed restructuring would allow some city ambulances, as well as those operated by private ambulance services, to be staffed with teams composed of one paramedic and one EMT rather than the current practice of putting two paramedics in the same ambulance. This would allow more ambulances with at least one paramedic to arrive at more emergencies without hiring additional staff.

The planned change in ambulance staffing would also have implications for the city budget. Since an ambulance with a paramedic charges more, revenue would increase. The recently adopted budget for 2010 assumes that the planned change in ambulance staffing would have been underway on July 1 and estimates that the restructuring would raise $2.1 million a year. The increased revenue would allow for a commensurate reduction in the city subsidy for fire department ambulance operations.

Understanding the staffing change requires a bit of background on the two levels of ambulance service provided by the fire department as well as the important differences between paramedics and EMTs. There are two types of ambulances: Advanced Life Support and Basic Life Support. Advanced Life Support units, currently required to be staffed with two paramedics, are dispatched to the most serious medical emergencies, such as heart attacks, choking incidents, and third-degree burn cases. Basic Life Support units are staffed with two EMTs and are typically sent to less critical emergencies such as complaints of heat exhaustion or respiratory distress.

Paramedics are more highly trained than EMTs, with the former receiving some 1,500 hours of training as compared with 120 hours to 150 hours for technicians. Paramedics’ higher level of training allows them to perform advanced medical procedures, including intubation and the administration of drugs. The city charges more for advanced medical care, receiving higher reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid as well as from patients’ private insurance plans.

There’s only one place in the state where Advanced Life Support ambulances are required to have two paramedics—New York City. Regulations governing ambulance staffing in New York State are issued by entities known as regional emergency medical services councils. The membership of each council consists of physician representatives from public and private hospitals as well as local emergency medical services providers. There’s a council with responsibility solely for New York City.

Under current staffing and deployment levels, there are times when ambulances with paramedics are unavailable or unable to reach an emergency in a timely manner. In fiscal year 2009, in about 2 percent of serious medical emergencies—or about 5,500 incidents—paramedics were not available and EMTs responded instead. Even when paramedics are available to respond, it wasn’t always as promptly as the city aims for. In fiscal year 2009, 80.4 percent of serious medical emergencies were responded to by paramedics in less than 10 minutes, falling short of the fire department’s own goal of 90 percent for this performance indicator. (Responder and response time data cover ambulances operated by the fire department and the private services.)

By teaming paramedics with emergency medical technicians, more ambulances would be staffed with at least one paramedic, increasing the likelihood that an ambulance with a paramedic shows up when needed and on time.

In refusing the city’s 2005 request, the local emergency services council asserted that the city had not submitted convincing evidence that Advanced Life Support units responding to 911 calls within the five boroughs could be safely staffed with fewer than two paramedics. The union representing paramedics agreed, saying that working individually would put too much pressure on paramedics and be a risk to patients. The city’s latest proposal to reverse the unique two-paramedic rule for ambulances operating in the five boroughs has yet to change the council’s mind.

Education

Schools and Trailer Parks

1 Comment

Posted by Sarita Subramanian and Doug Turetsky, June 25, 2009

As the school year winds down, kids at more than 100 city schools may be thinking it’s the last time they’ll be going to class in a so-called Transportable Classroom Unit—more commonly known as a trailer. In fact, thousands of students will again be calling a trailer their classroom come September, and probably for many Septembers more. It wasn’t always supposed to be this way.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s five-year school construction plan for city fiscal years 2005-2009, his first under mayoral control of the schools, included the goal of reducing the use of transportables to just swing space when a school building was being repaired, and to completely eliminate their use by 2012 (see IBO’s School Capital Plan Counts on More Seats, Falling Enrollment to Ease Overcrowding).

As of the 2007-2008 school year, there were 402 trailers in use at 131 schools. That meant nearly 10,500 elementary and middle schoolers called a trailer their classroom (because high school students don’t have home rooms, there is no enrollment data for transportables separate from a high school’s main building). Numerous schools had multiple trailers parked in their schoolyards: At P.S. 19 in Queens, for example, 245 children attended class in five trailers.

So it may come as no surprise that the Mayor’s latest five-year school construction plan for 2010-2014, which the City Council approved last week, no longer aims to eliminate the use of transportables.

The trailers came into increasing use in the 1990s as rising enrollments swelled well past the capacities of many school buildings and the news media featured stories about classes being held in closets, hallways, and perhaps most vividly, bathrooms. The Giuliani Administration saw the transportables as a relatively quick and cheap way to temporarily alleviate school overcrowding until more seats could be added in new or existing school buildings. The assumption was the trailers would be gone in about 10 years.

As the city has added classroom seats and enrollment leveled off, overcrowding eased in some places. But there are many schools that remain overcrowded, and many of the trailers are overcrowded too.

In school year 2007-2008, trailers at 93 elementary and middle schools citywide were at an average of nearly 121 percent of capacity. That meant more than 6,400 students attended class in overcrowded trailers.

In Queens, where school overcrowding has generally been highest, there were trailers at 40 schools containing classrooms for more than 4,000 children, with average usage at 111 percent of capacity. It was a bit tighter in Brooklyn, where trailers at 27 schools were at an average of 119 percent of capacity. But it was even more cramped in the Bronx: trailers at 20 schools were stretching their seams at an average of nearly 134 percent of capacity. Manhattan and Staten Island had relatively few trailers.

With multiple transportables at many schools, the schoolyards can sometimes look more like a trailer park than a play space for kids. The lack of play space at many schools has been of particular concern to Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, who has introduced a bill that would require the education department to report annually on the availability of outdoor play space at city schools and the continued use of transportables.

The Bloomberg Administration has also recognized the effect of trailers on the availability of schools’ outdoor play space. The just approved 2010-2014 school construction plan makes note of the PlaNYC long-term initiative to ensure that there is a playground within a 10-minute walk for every child.

Police and Fire

Fewer Cops, and More of Them Behind Desks?

Posted by Bernard O’Brien, June 11, 2009

The number of police officers in the city is expected to soon reach its lowest level since 1990. But a declining number of officers may not be the only hurdle in the police department’s efforts to maintain patrol force—the number of cops on the beat.

A proposal in the Mayor’s Executive Budget calls for the New York Police Department (NYPD) to cut its civilian staffing by 1,055 positions in the coming year, including 395 layoffs. The planned cut would reduce the number of civilians by more than 6 percent, to 15,555. This has led to concern that an increasing number of police officers will need to spend time performing clerical and other support functions which do not require law enforcement expertise.

As of March 2009, before the impact of the latest round of cutbacks, the NYPD reported there were already 469 full duty police officers (personnel not restricted to “light duty”) assigned to administrative or other support functions. Recent testimony by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly reinforced the concern that the number of police officers needed to fill support functions may grow.

While the NYPD has applied for—and is widely expected to get—federal stimulus bill funding that would cover the cost of at least several hundred police officer positions, there’s no similar money flowing from Washington, as it did in the 1990s, for civilian police staffing.

The additional federally funded police officer positions could not come at a better time as far as the city budget is concerned. With the city’s fiscal difficulties slowing new hires, the size of the force has shrunk, as retiring officers are not replaced by the department. The police department first began receiving support for police officer salaries from Washington after passage of the 1994 federal crime bill, which included funding for a Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The recent federal stimulus bill provides a new round of COPS funding.

But the federal stimulus package does not provide for a new round of funding associated with a separate program from that same 1994 bill, which previously supported hundreds of NYPD civilian positions. That grant program, referred to as the COPS Making Officer Redeployment Effective initiative, or COPS-MORE, provided funds to localities seeking to hire civilian personnel so that police officers already on staff could be freed from desk duty and deployed in direct law enforcement roles.

The generally lower cost associated with civilian personnel as opposed to police officers meant that many local law enforcement agencies could stretch the federal support further to maximize the number of cops on the beat.

In 1997, the number of full-time civilian positions within the NYPD fully paid with non-city funds peaked at over 1,800. Nearly all of these positions were paid for with COPS-MORE funding or other federal monies received through the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program. Both of those programs have phased-out and as of March 2009, there were only 25 NYPD civilian positions being paid for with either federal or state funds.

Youth

A One-Time Cure for the Summertime Job Blues

1 Comment

Posted by Nashla Salas, May 21, 2009

It’s become something of a spring ritual: each year teens, advocates, and their legislative supporters seek ways to beef up funding for the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program. Typically, the efforts result in the city or state kicking in some additional dollars. This year offered a new twist as the federal stimulus act provided about $30 million in new funds for the city’s youth. But this one-time windfall may presage an even a bigger hole in next year’s budget for the program.

Last summer, the jobs program had a budget of $54 million, $31 million from the city, $20 million from the state, and the remaining $3 million from the federal government. This funding enabled 43,000 teens, out of more than 100,000 who applied, to have jobs in day camps, senior centers, retail stores, and at other sites around the city.

For this summer, the funding mix is being turned on its head. The budget for the program, which starts July 1 and runs through August 15, is about $67 million. Roughly $33 million of the funds will come from the federal government. At the same time, the city is cutting its funding by more than half to $14 million. The state’s $20 million is basically unchanged.

The increased budget for this summer’s program means more youth can be hired, and for the first time youth up to 24 years old can apply. The additional federal funds will allow the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, which runs the program, to increase enrollment to 51,000—the highest level since 1999—as officials anticipate a record number of applicants. Applications are due tomorrow.

The one-time federal dollars come from two programmatic sources. One source is the Workforce Investment Act, which provided $3 million last summer but will increase to about $22 million just for this summer. The other federal source is the Community Services Block Grant, from which it’s expected Albany will pass through roughly $12 million to the city for teen summer jobs.

If not for these federal funds, the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program would only have been able to serve about 30,000 teens. That’s where the number of teens able to be employed by the program next summer may fall to since the federal funds are not expected to be available again. Given the large budget shortfalls facing the city and state next year, the annual rite to secure more funding for the program—and provide more teens with job opportunities—could be more challenging than usual.

Federal and State Aid, Taxes

Another Hole in the Budget Plan

1 Comment

Posted by Eldar Beiseitov, April 27, 2009

While the Mayor has focused much attention in recent weeks on the municipal unions’ reluctance to agree to more than $700 million in savings outlined in the Preliminary Budget, there’s another big hole to fill in the budget plan. Piggy-backing on proposals made by Governor David Paterson, the Bloomberg Administration’s Preliminary Budget included plans to eliminate the city’s current sales tax exemption on clothing and shoes costing less than $500 and to extend the sales tax to a variety of goods and services that aren’t now taxed. But with much of this falling by the wayside in the state budget, the city may well be down nearly $600 million in new tax revenue the Mayor had expected.

The state budget adopted late last month extended the state’s sales tax to certain types of transportation, such as taxis and limousines. But it didn’t incorporate the Governor’s original proposals to extend the state sales tax to digital goods, entertainment-spending, cable TV, capital improvement construction work, non-diet soft drinks, and other items. Nor did it alter the existing state sales-tax exemption for clothing purchases under $110 that had been proposed.

Since the types of goods and services subject to city sales tax generally follow the state, the Mayor is likely to limit his base-broadening proposals to what already passed in Albany. Consequently, instead of being worth nearly $200 million, as the Mayor estimated in January, the reduced list would generate a more modest $23 million in revenues in 2010.

With the state also abandoning repeal of the clothing exemption, city retailers would be placed at a competitive disadvantage with suburban retailers if the exemption were ended for the city portion of the tax. So the Bloomberg Administration may well jettison this portion of its plan as well—along with the nearly $400 million in additional revenue the Mayor had expected from it.

The Mayor has also proposed increasing the city’s sales tax from 4.0 to 4.25 percent. He estimated in the Preliminary Budget that the increase would be worth about $300 million in new revenue in 2010. Given fiscal realities, the Mayor is likely to hang on to that proposal in the Executive Budget to be released later this week.

The sales tax rate increase, which requires approval by the state Legislature, is a common move in fiscally turbulent times. New York, like other cities, often looks to sales tax rate increases when revenues are falling because they are relatively straightforward to implement quickly and usually generate less outrage from taxpayers because they pay it in small amounts with each purchase rather than a lump sum as with property taxes.

But sales taxes tend to be regressive because purchases take up a larger share of income for less affluent households. For example, data from the 2007 U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey indicate that a household with an income of roughly $35,000 spent about 46 percent of it on taxable purchases, while a household with about $125,000 in income spent just 30 percent. As a result, a 0.25 percentage point tax increase would cost the lower-income household $40 a year, but cost the higher-income household—which has over three times the income—only $93 a year.

Even with the revenue previously expected from these various sales tax increases, IBO projected a $1.4 billion shortfall in the Mayor’s 2010 budget. With another $600 million hole to fill, New Yorkers can expect more revenue raisers and service cuts in the Mayor’s upcoming budget plan.

Taxes

Another Wrinkle (Actually It’s Flat) in State’s Tax Increase on High-Income Taxpayers

Posted by Michael Jacobs, April 23, 2009

When New York State enacted a three-year increase on the personal income tax (PIT) for high-income taxpayers last month, few noticed an accompanying change in an arcane provision in the state’s tax laws. Because of the so-called “recapture” provision, many high-income taxpayers were already paying a single, flat rate on all of their income rather than getting the benefit of the state’s progressive tax rates. The new law not only adds brackets and rates but also expands the recapture provision. IBO estimates that New York City taxpayers will pony up about $2 billion more in taxes under the PIT increase—about $400 million of it due to the recapture rules.

So how exactly does this work? The state PIT increase expands the number of tax brackets from five to seven, with two new brackets carved out of the previous top bracket. The fifth bracket begins at $40,000 of taxable income for a married couple filing jointly and now ends at $300,000, with a marginal tax rate of 6.85 percent. The new sixth bracket ends at $500,000 and has a marginal tax rate of 7.85 percent—a 14.6 percent increase in the tax rate. The marginal rate for incomes above $500,000 (where the seventh bracket begins) is 8.97 percent, or 30.9 percent higher than the old rate.

Many of those falling in the new brackets will now see their tax bill increase by the full change in the marginal rates. Most joint filers falling into the new sixth bracket will have all of their taxable income taxed at the 7.85 percent rate, thus recapturing the benefits of the lower rates in the tax tables. If their adjusted gross income—taxable income before deductions and exemptions—is between $300,000 and $350,000, there’s a phase-in of the recapture rules.

Likewise, for most of those whose incomes fall in the top bracket the full recapture is in effect with all of their taxable income subject to the highest tax rate. For those with adjusted gross incomes between $500,000 and $550,000, the recapture again phases in.

IBO estimates that 89,000 out of the city’s nearly 2.3 million resident taxpayers will be paying a total of $2 billion more in state taxes in 2009 as a result of the PIT increase; the expanded recapture provisions account for about $400 million of that additional tax liability.

For filers with income near the thresholds for full recapture these provisions can account for most of their PIT increase. For example, a joint filer with $550,000 in adjusted gross income and $520,000 in taxable income will pay $12,318 more in state tax, over two-thirds of which results from the recapture. Because the recapture amounts do not increase as incomes rise above the $550,000 threshold, recapture accounts for a declining share of the total tax increase as incomes rise. Slightly less than 40 percent of the tax increase that a joint filer with $1 million in taxable income will pay results from the recapture rules.

The recapture provisions also mean the average tax rate and marginal rate for many taxpayers are one and the same, giving New York State’s highest-income residents a “flat” income tax. Of course, that doesn’t mean flat tax proponents are cheering the changes. Most proponents of a flat tax envision a single rate that is considerably lower than pre-existing top rates and one that applies to all taxpayers.

Sanitation

City‘s Recycling Goal Just Rubbish?

1 Comment

Posted by Doug Turetsky, April 13, 2009

While it has cost more to collect and dispose of a ton of recyclables than a ton of trash, the difference is narrowing as the cost of exporting garbage to landfills and incinerators outside the city rises. Last month the city signed a new 20-year contract for transporting refuse picked up by the sanitation department in Brooklyn to landfills and incinerators outside the city. The new Brooklyn contract is estimated to cost $134 per ton, well more than last year’s average citywide cost of $85.11. As a result, the fiscal incentive to promote recycling is increasing.

But the rising cost of exporting the city’s rubbish is only one part of the fiscal equation. Making recycling more cost-effective will also take increasing the city’s recycling rate. (For more details, see IBO’s More Recycling Needed to Help Lower City’s Trash Costs.)

When the Mayor and City Council adopted the city’s Solid Waste Management Plan in 2006, a key part of the plan was to reinvigorate New Yorkers’ recycling efforts. But the amount of paper, metal, glass, and plastic picked up curbside for recycling remains substantially below the city’s goals. And the amount of trash that’s recycled varies widely throughout the city.

The city aims to have 25 percent of the trash it picks up recyclable. In other words, by weight about 25 percent of the trash New Yorkers put out for collection should be separated in the appropriate recycling bins or bags. In fact, the share of recycling has only been about 16 percent since the solid waste plan was passed, which is actually lower than the 19.8 percent recycling rate in 2002. Granted the rate plummeted in 2003-2004 when the recycling program was cut back to just paper, and it took a while to get people back in the habit of recycling the other stuff. And with bottles increasingly being made from plastic and the size of newspapers shrinking (along with their readership), a weight-based goal has more hurdles. But reaching the 25 percent goal seems especially tough if you look at recycling rates at a borough or neighborhood level.

In fiscal year 2008, none of the boroughs had a recycling rate of 25 percent or more, and only 6 out of the city’s 59 sanitation districts had rates of 25 percent or above. Of the districts meeting or exceeding the recycling goal, five were in Manhattan. But some Manhattan neighborhoods were well under the goal. While neighborhoods such as the Upper West Side and Greenwich Village exceeded the goal, East Harlem and Central Harlem each recycled less than 10 percent of their curbside trash.

In the Bronx, where the overall 2008 recycling diversion rate was 10.8 percent, no district reached a 25 percent rate and 7 of the borough’s 12 districts recycled less than 10 percent of their trash. Among Brooklyn’ s 18 districts the recycling rate was 15.5 percent, and only the district comprising Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook exceeded 25 percent while two districts including Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville recycled at rates below 10 percent. In Queens, where the boroughwide rate was 17.7 percent, and Staten Island, where it was 16.5 percent, no district met the 25 percent goal but no district was at or below 10 percent.

The statistics through the first six months of the current fiscal year look very similar. Only six districts are meeting or exceeding the 25 percent goal: the same six as last year, although the Brooklyn district’s rate has slipped a bit. With the cost of exporting the city’s regular rubbish expected to rise by $80 million over the next few years and reach $395 million in 2012, it may be fiscally prudent to pull the city’s recycling rates out of the trash bin.

Federal and State Aid, Transportation

Despite Fare Hike and Service Cuts, MTA Budget May Soon Derail Again

1 Comment

Posted by Alan Treffeisen, March 30, 2009

Facing a nearly $1 billion operating budget hole this year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board decided last week to hike mass transit fares and raise tolls on the agency’s bridges and tunnels. The MTA board also approved an array of subway and bus service cuts.

As the MTA’s customers are threatened with the prospect of paying more for less, some may be unaware that the authority’s current financial plan assumes there will be a further fare and toll hike in 2011. Worse, even with the two sets of fare and toll increases, the MTA still must cope with substantial operating budget gaps after this year: almost $300 million in 2010, over $400 million in 2011, and over $600 million in 2012.

Compounding the bad news even further is the fact that so far this year, the MTA’s receipts from real estate-related taxes dedicated to the agency have been less than half the levels projected in the current financial plan. This raises the possibility that the modest $49 million surplus now projected for 2009 could turn into a deficit, requiring further budget-balancing measures this year.

Some of the MTA’s revenue streams, in particular the transfer taxes, are notoriously difficult to forecast. A strong economic recovery in 2010 could increase tax revenues enough to erase the MTA’s operating budget deficit.

Regardless of what happens to its operating budget, the MTA would still face the challenge of funding its 2010-2014 capital program for expansion projects such as the 2nd Avenue line and East Side Access, renovating subway stations, repairing signals and rails, buying new trains and buses, and other improvements needed to keep mass transit moving. While substantial federal funding can be expected (over one third of the $24 billion 2005-2009 capital program is funded by the federal government), the MTA will likely have to finance the bulk of the program with its own resources.

Due to a debt restructuring in the early part of this decade, the MTA’s ability to issue additional bonds backed by existing revenue streams is severely limited. The Ravitch Commission proposals for tolling the Harlem and East River bridges and levying a new regional payroll tax would have allowed the MTA to support future capital improvements through the issuance of bonds backed by these revenue sources. Regardless of whether the legislature in Albany ultimately crafts a “rescue” package to roll back some of the announced fare hikes and service cuts, an important consideration will be whether or not the plan addresses the gap in funding for the MTA’s capital needs.

Community Boards, Parks, Seniors, Youth

About Those Services You Prioritized

3 Comments

Posted by Doug Turetsky, March 19, 2009

Each year, as part of the city’s budget process, the 59 community boards are asked to rank the most important services in their districts. For fiscal year 2010, community boards could rank the importance of 90 services provided by 24 public agencies. The services to rank ranged from sidewalk repair to child care to trash collection. The community board priorities are then published in a little-known report called the “Community Board Service Program Rankings.”

So what are the most important services to the 48 community boards that participated in this year’s report? Topping the list is “services for the elderly”—up from sixth last year. Number two is “parks maintenance,” which was also second last year. Third is “after school/summer school programs” and fourth “youth development services,” which frequently overlap with after-school related activities. After-school and youth development services were tied for third last year.

The report also identified the priorities by borough. Services for the elderly are among the top three priorities for each of the boroughs except Staten Island, where it ranked 12th. Parks maintenance is among the top four priorities in each of the boroughs except Manhattan, where it ranked eighth. The ranking of after school and youth development services are more of a mix among the boroughs, though youth development is tops in Brooklyn and after school is number one in the Bronx and second in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

How did these top priorities fare in the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget for the upcoming fiscal year? Well, funding for senior centers is facing a $5.3 million cut, making the total budget for the centers $86.5 million next year. It is not clear yet how services will be affected, whether senior centers will have to reduce the number of people served or eliminate programs.

The parks department budget includes a proposed reduction in spending on maintenance and operations, which would drop from $244.1 million this year to $222.5 million in fiscal year 2010. About 90 percent of the parks department’s maintenance and operations budget goes to taking care of neighborhood parks.

After-school programs are also facing the budget ax. The budget plan includes the elimination of 91 Out-of-School Time programs serving 10,750 kids to save $6.1 million. Because of this and other budgetary changes, the number of youth served by Out-of-School Time programs is expected to drop from roughly 80,000 last school year to 56,000 in the upcoming year.

Senior services, parks maintenance, and youth programs have long been a City Council priority, with proposed cuts restored—sometimes with additional funds—when the budget is adopted. But given the city’s fiscal turmoil and the level of budget cuts in many other programs, there’s no guarantee for the year ahead.