Per The New York Times, the Council and Mayor have agreed on a $59.1B budget for the new fiscal year just ahead of the July 1st deadline. The budget shifts funding away from infrastructure and towards taxpayers and consumers of City services.

During the news conference, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn offered a few of the highlights. The New York City Housing Authority would receive $18 million more than Mr. Bloomberg proposed in May. Libraries would continue to be open six days a week and not five as was originally suggested.

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.

A City of this size, complexity and age can get away with cutting capital spending for a year or two; beyond that, due to the age of our infrastructure, deferred maintenance inevitably results in higher costs down the road.

This is, in short, a classic election-year budget. Voters don't see the capital budget in the same way and with the same immediacy as they see their local library branch staying open for an extra day a week.

A NY Post article, printed two days ago, exposed the fact millions of our tax dollars have been set aside in phony accounts for later, quiet if not private, use. Since then, Speaker Christine Quinn has been on something of a hot seat.

We still don't know all the facts. What we appear to know so far is the following:

1. The law requires the City Council to allocate all funds at the beginning of the fiscal year.

2. Often, expenditures must be made during the fiscal year that were unanticipated at the beginning of that year.

3. Since at least 1988, the Council has set aside some money to provide for unanticipated costs. Recently, at least, that money was officially allocated to phony accounts.

4. The Speaker claims that she ordered this practice stopped and didn't know until very recently that her order was ignored.

It appears that no laws were broken. But the Speaker has been