New Report Details Rise In Crime Since 2010; Bloomberg Warns Of Continued Service Strains
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The Mayor’s Management Report was released Friday, and the statistics included within show that amid budget cuts, crime has increased in the city since fiscal year 2010. NY1’s Courtney Gross filed the following report.On his radio show Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned of a bad budget for years to come even after the city slashed services.
"We've got a big deficit for the next two years and have used up two-thirds of our reserve already for this year, so next year and the year after are going to be really tough," said Bloomberg.
Because of the budget cuts, crime is up, class size is increasing and it takes nearly double the time for the city to fix a pothole.
Statistics detailing these problems were released in an annual report Friday that’s known as the Mayor's Management Report, which assesses city services. The results were mixed.
Rapes in the city have risen from 860 in fiscal year 2010 to 1,138. There were 494 murders last fiscal year but 526 in 2011. Felony assaults have also climbed from 16,906 to 17,743.
Average response time for the NYPD has jumped nearly a minute, from seven and half minutes to eight minutes and 24 seconds.
Representatives from the mayor's office say crime is still way down since when Bloomberg first took office, but other officials say it's time to hire more police officers.
"This is the inevitable result of having almost 7,000 less officers from September 11, 2001. We need 1,800 cops into the academy January 1st," said City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr.
In the classroom, class size has climbed across the board and 31 percent of elementary schools exceed capacity, worrying education advocates.
"It makes me worry that in this time of fiscal constraint, are we making the investment in children that we really need to make?" said Kim Sweet of Advocates for Children of New York.
There was some good news in the report, however. School safety incidents have fallen along with traffic fatalities. Construction-related incidents have also dropped from 649 to 462. AIDS, syphilis and tuberculosis cases are all down.
The number of building permits issued is back on the rise, and the number of tourists continues to climb.
Overall, the mayor's office said 56 percent of its indicators have improved since fiscal year 2010, but with bleaker budgets on the horizon, it's unclear whether those numbers can hold steady.