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NYC raises red-carpet fees, fines in budget crunch
2008-11-07
NEW YORK - Facing alarming budget deficits, the city has come up with some unusual ways to save money and cut costs: Steeper fees for red-carpet events. Higher parking meter rates. Cheaper reflective traffic signs instead of lighted versions. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has staked his campaign for a third consecutive term next year on his promise to save the city from financial ruin, delivered a budget update this week that predicts gaps of $303 million this fiscal year and $3.7 billion next year. He's already warning of tax hikes while slashing spending, eliminating jobs and tossing out two pieces of property tax relief for homeowners. The actions, Bloomberg said Thursday, are "not pretty, but if we take them now it will forestall, I hope, more serious cuts later on." His administration is intent on hunting for extra pennies everywhere, so costs are going up on a wide range of fees and fines. Big movie premieres and flashy red-carpet events that disrupt street and sidewalk traffic would face permit fees as high as $24,000 -- nearly five times the current rate for such affairs. The city estimates that higher fees will generate an extra $99,000 a year. City Hall also plans to charge more for oversize truck permits, up from $25 to $35, generating an extra $276,000 per year. Metered street parking would become more expensive in parts of Manhattan. All fines levied by the city's environmental control board, including those for such violations as failure to pick up dog waste, will be more aggressively processed, generating an extra $1.7 million per year. The mayor is canceling the next class of more than 1,100 police academy cadets to save money, but the police department is hiring more traffic agents to expand it efforts to crack down on drivers who obstruct intersections during red lights. The extra focus on those violations is expected to generate $60 million more in revenue per year. The administration is considering a 5-cent tax on plastic shopping bags, charged to customers at the register, as a way to raise money and help protect the environment. The proposal is projected to raise $16 million per year. City agencies were directed to come up with ways to raise money and cuts costs. Among their ideas is a proposal to replace lighted traffic signs with reflective versions. And the Department of Education aims to save $5 million per year by reducing custodial services in schools and scrapping a planned global positioning system for its bus fleet. Philadelphia, which faces a similar budget dilemma, on Thursday announced several cost-saving measures, including plans to close libraries and swimming pools, suspend planned tax reductions, cut more than 800 jobs and trim salaries for some administrators.
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