Top FDNY leaders in hot seat during budget oversight hearing
Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore and senior leadership in the FDNY took the hot seat on Friday, fielding tough questions about spending, infrastructure, pay parity and overtime.
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City leaders are combing through every dollar of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's $127B proposed budget for fiscal year 2027.
The mayor has tasked every agency with appointing a chief savings officer, a position focused solely on digging for efficiencies down to the penny.
It's part of an effort to plug an estimated $5.4 billion deficit in the city's budget.
Throughout the week, various agencies have been testifying at City Hall oversight hearings.
Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore and senior leadership in the FDNY took the hot seat on Friday, fielding tough questions about spending, infrastructure, pay parity, and overtime.
“It is time to pay them (EMS) a living wage, a salary that allows them to do incredibly life saving work, and provide for their families," said FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore.
The FDNY is slated to receive 3% or $2.6B of the city's budget for 2027.
"The capital budget we have, about half of it is for facility repair, if we were able to get unlimited money for these repairs, we still would not be able to make all of the repairs at once," said Bonsignore. "As we start to repair some of these houses, we have to relocate the resources...that leaves areas of our city that don't have coverage."
The conversation also focused on crumbling infrastructure. Council members questioned why repairs to aging firehouses are lagging, even when the funding has previously been allocated.
"Why is there such a gap, if the money is there, and you have to maintain these houses, why is there such a gap in the timeline when you first get the dangerous report," questioned Joann Ariola, chair of the Fire And Emergency Management Committee.
Commissioner Bonsignore acknowledged the delays, saying the department is working on repairs to improve conditions for first responders.
The department says they are already on pace to overspend slightly on overtime, barreling through 69% of their OT budget as of the hearing.
Ariola is pushing for the FDNY to be exempt from finding savings, and fighting to allocate an additional $1 billion to the department who has not received a budget bump in four years.
"We are very concerned that you are going to take money from the FDNY and we cannot have that happen," said Ariola.
The FDNY"s chief savings officer says they are still ironing out their exact ways to save.
"Our north star in this whole process is making sure we are not negatively impacting operations," said Lizette Christoff, who was tasked as the FDNY's chief savings officer.
The budget must be finalized in June.
