Bill de Blasio sends City Hall employees, including himself, on unpaid leave

Every New York City employee, including Bill de Blasio, will take a week's unpaid leave to ease the impact of the budget crisis. Each employee must select a vacation week from October 1, 2020 to March 2021. Given a salary of $ 258, sand a week of such a vacation, the mayor will lose about $ 5 thousand. The edition writes about it Fox News.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday, September 16, that his entire office, including himself, will be sent on unpaid leave for a week. This is supposed to help combat the city's multi-billion dollar budget crisis.

The mayor's wife, Chirlane McCray, and 1 other mayor's office workers will take unpaid leave at different times from October 2020, 2021 to March 493. This is expected to save $ 860.

“We must make tough choices to move this city forward and keep our budget in balance,” de Blasio told reporters. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has faced a budget deficit of about $ 9 billion.

The mayor added that "the budget for the current fiscal year is $ 7 billion less" than the city planned for February. New York City lost $ 336 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30.

On the subject: The crisis is not a hindrance: the wife of the mayor of New York spends $ 2 million from the city budget on 14 assistants

City Hall's budget will be 12% less this fiscal year compared to last.

De Blasio admitted that he hoped to receive federal funds to cope with the crisis, but they did not come, and are unlikely to come before the end of the year.

With the mayor's salary of $ 258 a year, de Blasio is expected to lose about $ 541 per week of unpaid leave.

“We have already had to make some hard cuts that have affected this city and the services we provide. We tried everything we could to stop these contractions. We do not want to take away jobs from civil servants, we do not want to take away services from communities that need them, ”de Blasio said.

He added that New York will continue to fight for a stimulus bill from Washington and borrowing from the state government.

Later, the mayor mentioned, answering journalists' questions, that the city "is looking for all possible ways to take steps that it can take while continuing negotiations on long-term borrowings."

New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in July urged Gov. Andrew Cuomo to impose a wealth tax on billionaires in order to get relief for residents affected by COVID-19. Cuomo dismissed the idea, saying the city was "trying to get people who left to return."

The richest 1% of New Yorkers contribute 50% of the state's tax revenue, the governor said at the time.