By a vote of 6-1, the Yonkers City Council Wednesday night approved Mayor Phillip Amicone's $894 million spending plan, but stopped short of restoring a number of services that had been cut in recent weeks, including twice-weekly garbage collection.
City Council President Chuck Lesnick said, "We had hoped that we would be able to actually restore services, but there were some snags in the labor negotiations. We felt we needed to approve the budget so that the Mayor could at least be able to send out tax bills and allow him to continue to negotiate with the city's labor unions."
Yonkers was up against a July 15 deadline to get the budget approved. The spending plan must still be certified before the Comptroller before the city can finally send out its tax bills, something officials say will bring in much needed revenue. Had Yonkers not approved a new budget, the city would literally have run out of money on July 23.
Mayor Phillip Amicone is expected to begin meeting with some of the city's labor unions as early as Thursday.