Betsy’s spent
City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum hasn’t been able to absorb a 40 percent budget cut imposed on her office, and is spending at a rate that will leave her successor without enough money to cover his own salary, much less hire a staff, The Post has learned.
Sources said that by the time she ends her eight-year term on Dec. 31, Gotbaum will have burned through all but $100,000 of the $1.4 million she was allocated for staff salaries — with six months to go in the fiscal year.
“There won’t be enough left for [incoming public advocate] Bill de Blasio to pay himself,” said one insider.
The salary of the public advocate is $165,000.
Officials said Mayor Bloomberg will provide an emergency $850,000 to de Blasio, who’ll be sworn in on Jan. 1, so he can open for business.
“He will be held [blameless] for the overspending by his predecessor,” said Stu Loeser, the mayor’s spokesman.
When the city’s $59.4 billion budget was being negotiated earlier this year, Bloomberg sliced Gotbaum’s share by 40 percent, from $2.8 million to $1.7 million.
In past years, the City Council has restored the mayor’s reduction with funds from its own budget.
But this year, members decided not to do so. Gotbaum protested furiously, without success, claiming the mayor and Council Speaker Christine Quinn were getting back at her for opposing the term-limits extension.
Sarah Krauss, Gotbaum’s spokeswoman, said she’s since made severe cuts to try to meet the budget mandate, and is now down to a bare-bones operation with just 31 employees.
“She did everything in her power not to spend money she didn’t have to,” Krauss said.
