City Girds for Major Federal Cuts Under Trump Budget, Health Plan

Despite what the de Blasio Administration calls “unprecedented” reserves it has salted away to insulate the city from the fiscal risks it faces from the Trump Administration, a top official with City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office said March 14 that it needs at least another billion dollars set aside and more belt-tightening.

Deputy New York City Comptroller for Budget Pres­ton Niblack told an Association for a Better New York breakfast that the cuts coming in the form of Federal block grants, as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan’s proposed replacement for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, would require “a slightly bigger cushion” than the $5 billion set aside in Mr. de Blasio’s $84.7-billion FY 18 budget proposal. “I totally recognize what the administration has done in this regard,” said Mr. Niblack. “But I think we need to add probably at least a billion, if not more, to the reserves that we have to manage whatever comes down the road.”