Borough Board Passes FY 2007 Capital-Expense Budget
BY LINDA J. WILSON

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $52.2 billion Fiscal Year 2007 budget calls for closing the city's budget gap through reducing spending or increasing revenues by $262 million. Last Monday, the chairs of Queens' 14 community planning boards voted to submit a list of capital and expense budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2007 that would restore the funding cuts to cultural organizations, senior centers, libraries, community consultants and local development organizations throughout Queens. "These reductions, if effectuated, will reduce services that are vital to many residents of our borough," Borough President Helen Marshall said in her preface to the capital and expense budget priorities. "Implementation will not only provide services sorely needed, but also strengthen our economy."

"Services sorely needed" include restoration of $533,000 for "non-core" services for the Department for the Aging (DFTA). With more than 374,000 persons 60 years of age and older living in Queens, services such as the Queens Interagency Council on Aging, the only boroughwide coordinating organization for senior services as well as senior wellness programs, are essential to the health and well being of the senior population. Another $1.567 million has been requested to be restored to the budget for confirmation reconsolidation and referral services, currently available through senior centers and case management and information referral agencies. The borough board is reluctant to remove these services and centralize them to the 311 information number. "311 is a place where seniors can get lost," Marshall commented.

The budget also calls for restoration of $1.719 million that constitutes the Queens allocation of funding for cultural institutions. While programs at Queens Theatre In the Park and Flushing Town Hall, for example, might seem peripheral to larger issues, Marshall noted, "These programs bring people to Queens, and they bring dollars to our community." The "constant inequity in cultural funding between the boroughs" was suggested to be addressed by creating an equitable formula for the distribution of funds among the boroughs through the city Cultural Development Fund. This mandate should take place through a Term and Condition to the budget allocation to the city Department of Cultural Affairs.

As has been the case for a number of years, the Office of the Borough President requested restoration of $1.8 million. Full restoration of these funds, cuts in which have resulted in paring the office staff to a bare-bones number of 56 individuals, will enable the Office of the Borough President to conduct the duties it is mandated to carry out under the City Charter.

An allocation of $400,000 for 45 neighborhood preservation consultant contracts with community groups has not been included in the Fiscal Year 2007 preliminary budget. The Forest Hills Community House, NHS of Northern Queens, Rockaway Development & Restoration Corporation, Jamaica Housing Improvement and Neighborhood Housing Services of Jamaica each receive $8,695 in city funds and $40,000 in community development funds under this contract program. Jamaica Housing Improvement, Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Center and Margert Community Corporation also receive $60,000 each for community consultant contracts for anti-predatory lending activities.

Funding for a City Council initiative to preserve housing stock in which Jamaica Housing Improvement and NHS of Jamaica, Central Astoria Local Development Coalition, Forest Hills Community House, Greater Ridgewood Restoration Corporation, Jackson Heights Community Development Corporation, Pomonok, Queens Community Civic Association, Queensboro Council and Woodside On the Move received a total of $174,004 was not continued in the FY 2007 budget. The borough board also asked that these funds be restored.

In response to questions from Vasantrai Gandhi, chairman of Community Board 3, Marshall and several other board and councilmembers noted that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity has been upheld by courts at every level, yet Governor George Pataki continues to defy rulings that the state supply $9.2 billion to New York City for school construction and an additional $5.63 billion annually in operating aid. "How can this be?" Gandhi wanted to know. He was told that the state says that the money simply is not available, a response which, he said, he found lacking in credibility.

While specific funds were not requested for the borough's police precincts, several specific requests were made, including funds for a police substation in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. "This year-round tourist attraction and flagship park deserves the same precinct level support afforded to Central Park," Marshall said. Many police officers from Queens precincts are assigned to special crime units and anti-terrorism activities, resulting in a much lower officer census in the borough, a situation which also calls for redress.

Capital budget priorities were set forth on a borough-wide basis as well as by individual community boards. Among the borough-wide projects for which funding was sought was the Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, which requested $1,500,000 for development of a new Campus of Creativity facility, $735,000 in capital funding requests for FY 2007 from the CUNY School of Law, $1,000,000 for a master plan by Alley Pond Environmental Center for a new building and parking area, $3,000,000 requested by the Greater Ridgewood Restoration Corporation for street trees for the neighborhood's commercial corridor and $100,000 each from the Bowne House Historical Society and the Lewis Latimer House for restoration and security, respectively.