N.Y.C. Council Passes Budget With $8.92B of Bond Sales

The New York City Council passed a $63.1 billion budget Tuesday evening that includes $8.92 billion of bonds to be sold to partially finance the city’s capital program.

The adopted budget appropriates $11.17 billion for capital spending in the fiscal year beginning July 1, according to budget documents posted online following the vote, approximately $830 million more than proposed in the Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s executive budget.

Office of Management and Budget spokesman Raymond Orlando said that the projected all funds capital spending is lower than appropriations — $9.5 billion. The city will release its updated capital commitment program in September.

While the budget agreement increased appropriations for a range of projects, it also reflected cuts to capital spending, including tens of millions of dollars to renovate courthouses and $185 million for a pollution-control project at Newtown Creek.

Most of the city’s capital spending will be financed through bonds.

Orlando said that the projected bonding had not changed from the executive budget proposal, which called for the city to sell $8.92 billion of bonds to partially finance its capital program.

The city plans to sell in fiscal 2011 $3.03 billion of general obligation bonds, $3.03 billion of future tax-secured New York City Transitional Finance Authority bonds, $2.16 billion of New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority future tax-secured bonds and $711 million of TFA building aid revenue bonds.

Debt service on the city’s general obligation, lease and TFA future tax-secured bonds is projected to rise to $5.35 billion in fiscal 2011 compared with the current year.

Debt service on those credits is projected to rise to $6.59 billion by fiscal 2014.

The city projects large deficits in future years, rising to a projected $5.34 billion by fiscal 2014.

When it was flush, the city defeased debt, reducing its debt service costs. New York City defeased $536 million of GO bonds in fiscal 2007 and $1.99 billion in fiscal 2008.

The budget deal, the outlines of which were agreed to last week by Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, kept open fire companies that had been targeted to close and retained teaching jobs.

In May the mayor said that the city would have to cut 6,400 teaching positions and 400 firefighting jobs because of the economy and expected reductions in state aid. The adopted budget cuts at least 1,000 city workers through layoffs and 2,000 teaching positions and up to 4,000 nonteaching positions through attrition.

The budget also closes 25 senior centers and seven-day care centers. It reduces library operations to five days from six.

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New York
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