NYC’s $98.7B budget deal adds just $300M to fight crime — zero for new cops

New York City’s $98.7 billion budget deal contains just $200 million more to fight crime amid a surge in violence — as well as $100 million to house and employ ex-cons — but not a nickel for additional cops.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) on Wednesday announced what they vaguely called “targeted investments to break the cycle of incarceration and reduce gun violence” that will use “housing and employment as an anti-violence measure” — working around the NYPD. And even though President Biden last week said cities could use federal COVID-19 relief funds to hire more cops, de Blasio said the Big Apple was taking a different tack amid a surge in shootings that includes Sunday’s wounding of a tourist in broad daylight in Times Square and two kids who miraculously avoided gang-related gunfire in the Bronx earlier this month.