- New York City's firefighting staff would fall to the lowest number since 1980 while its police force would be cut back to its 1992 roster under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's austere budget plan, a report said Friday.
Bloomberg, who has ordered 10 rounds of budget cuts since 2007, pins the city's fiscal health and its future on ensuring its residents' safety and improving public school education.
Budget cuts risk imperiling these priorities, reducing the number of firefighting staff to 10,282, and the number of uniformed police officers to 34,413. Bloomberg's $65 billion budget plan also includes just under 5,000 teacher layoffs.
Ensuring safety? Improving schools? By cutting everything evidently. Everything except entitlement handouts, but that's a nationwide problem coming to a head rapidly.