I agree with the Daily News on this one...Community Boards should be spared from the budget cuts...the Boards have 35-50 neighborhood volunteers providing the City with many "free" hours and they are the eyes and ears of the City on a local level and in my opinion more helpful than the costly 311 centers that the mayor always touts...the Boards and the District Managers know the local issues much better than the operators at 311...
In the big budgetary picture - and New York City's $60 billion budget for fiscal year 2009 is nothing if not big - $10,000 is a substantial sum, but not a lot of money.
In the more modest world a local community boards, $10,000 is a lot of money, but, regrettably, that is the amount that the city's budgeteers have decided each board must lose.
The Bloomberg administration isn't picking on the community boards. They are being asked to give up 5% of their annual budgets, the same percentage other city agencies were directed to trim.
Times are harder, or at least harder than they were last year, and it makes good sense for the city to try to live within the means provided by tax revenues. That's our money they are spending, and they certainly should spend it prudently.
Still, the community boards serve a valuable purpose as the "little City Halls," where most citizens get their best chance to make their voices heard. Unlike many other city agencies, they haven't had an increase in their annual budgets in more than 20 years. Each board has received $200,000 a year since 1986.
Community boards are the city's best shot at getting all citizens involved in the way we are governed. That doesn't mean they should be exempt from needed economies, but they should be high on the city's list of agencies deserving of a budget boost if and when the fiscal situation eases.
