And Now The Buy-Outs...OOPS, Pay-Offs, Begin

Whatever you want to call it, Bloomberg is giving money to people who need to work with him for another four years. Makes life a little bit easier, perhaps.



Bloomberg holds out $850G olive branch to de Blasio for office budget
By Frank Lombardi, DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU, November 6th 2009
LINK

Bill de Blasio hasn't taken over as public advocate yet, but his new office just got a budget increase.

In a peace gesture to the public advocate-elect, Mayor Bloomberg promised to pump an additional $850,000 into the office's budget to offset severe cuts.

De Blasio, who was elected Tuesday, will take over the office in January, but most of the office's skimpy $1.7 million annual budget already has been used up under Betsy Gotbaum.


The funds will help overcome an immediate budget crunch for de Blasio, who was sharply critical of the mayor during his election campaign and had said he would run a more assertive advocate's office than Gotbaum, who did not seek reelection to a third term.







Gotbaum's $2.8 million budget was cut by $1.1 million by Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn during last year's budget process.