Large-scale layoffs are coming if the city loses lawsuits to prevent the sale of more than $1 billion worth of yellow taxi medallions, Mayor Bloomberg declared today.
“It would mean a lot fewer workers, I’ll tell you that,” the mayor said on his weekly WOR radio show.
Bloomberg’s budget for the 2013 fiscal year, which starts on July 1, assumes the city will be collecting hefty proceeds from the sale of 2,000 new medallions, which are currently fetching close to $1 million each in the private resale market.
The mayor has been warning for days that the consequences would be dire if the taxi medallion money sudden fell through.
Today, for the first time, he indicated that the jobs of lots of city workers would have to be cut.
“The business model for government is you hire people to provide services,” Bloomberg said. “If you;re going to spend less, it’s plan and simple– fewer people. And you say, `Do it with attrition.’ In a down economy, attrition doesn’t work. Nobody would leave. So it would be a very serious thing.”
Members of the yellow cab industry have filed three lawsuits that have temporarily blocked both the sale of the medallions and the launch of a signature administration plan for a new fleet of metered cabs that would pick up street hauls in the boroughs outside Manhattan.