Chess program for schools cut in NY

Bloomberg and Council Reach Deal on Budget
By DAVID W. CHEN and MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: June 27, 2008

With a legal deadline four days away, city officials brokered a deal on Thursday night on a $59.1 billion budget that would preserve a popular tax cut for homeowners and a $400 rebate and add $129 million in education spending to what had originally been proposed.

Over all, the size of the budget for the fiscal year that begins in July is essentially unchanged from the current one. But during a news conference in the City Hall rotunda, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said they were not able to provide as much money as they would have liked for some cultural and social programs. And they repeatedly warned that the current economic downturn threatened the following year’s budget, thanks to the rising price of oil, a falling stock market and other troubling indicators.

“I don’t have to tell anybody here that this is a difficult time and the forecasts are worrisome,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “With so much uncertainty in the local and national economy, we need to show fiscal restraint just as families across the city are doing.”

…The city’s capital budget would be trimmed by 20 percent. All agencies would absorb across-the-board cuts in operating expenses. And financing for City Council-sponsored programs, now at the heart of a federal investigation, was cut by 38 percent. There would also be less money to pay for security guards at cultural institutions, and a chess program for schools was cut.

Here is the full article.