Council not interested in Mayor's budget dance

Mayor Michael Bloomberg declined to include $300 million in funding for existing programs in his proposed city budget. Many in the New York City nonprofit community expressed disappointment at Bloomberg’s readiness to engage in the annual “budget dance,” a term used by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to describe the political maneuvering surrounding allocations. Said Coalition Against Hunger Executive Director Joel Berg, “Not only did the mayor fail to include funding for any of the anti-hunger initiatives proposed by Speaker Quinn, he actually called for [a] $670,000 cut in the Emergency Food Assistance Program.... We applaud Speaker Quinn and the Council for realizing that with millions of lives at stake, the budget process should not be a 'dance' but rather a serious process of meeting city needs."