We keep hearing the mantra: New York needs to keep its middle class. Absent intelligent policies embodied in the City budget, that middle class family the city covets often leaves and may be harder and harder to replace.

Yes, we have low property taxes on our homes; yet New York City's tax policies wrongly subsidize extra illegal occupancies which crowd some schools in our southern neighborhoods (and other parts of the borough). The City similarly fails to collect the correct taxes from the illegal commercial uses of our homes. Citywide, this failure costs taxpayers more than one billion dollars. This could be applied to the City's structural deficit. Alternatively, this amount could be dedicated to build affordable housing to help relieve the demand that help fuels illegal development.

In terms of City services, it's time to rethink how New York City composes its budget. The budget should reflect the need to involve communities in the delivery of services. Community Boards continually note their priorities often vary. The budget never reflects the need to allocate resources to reflect different neighborhood priorities. The budget should direct City resources to address community needs such as code enforcement, tree pruning/ removal, traffic studies and signal installation, and programs for youth and seniors.

You should recognize that while schools in northeast Queens - we cover most of District 26 and parts of 25 and 29 - succeed better than most other city schools, prospective and current residents compare our schools against education offered outside the City. Don't shortchange our schools here just because the students score better. The efforts of Council Members Leffler, Abel and Povman placed state-of-the-art computer centers are in most of our schools. We need a program to maintain this investment and train our teachers to integrate the technology with the core curriculum. Look hard at the course offerings and make sure the resources exist to teach science, art and music as well as the basics.

Let's talk about funding. We recognize that resources are tight and tough choices must be made. Yet, a budget document can offer leadership and philosophy. It seems when commissioners make cuts, they always cut the worker who performs the services. The budget should put a premium on that worker and then build, to the extent resources remain, the appropriate level of supervision, not the reverse.

In additional, explore regional models for funding agencies. Some communities may require more of a service than others. A citywide approach rarely works. As long as the basic package gets divided reasonably and fairly, we believe equity should be achieved. Instead of a pie, think of a package of several smaller slices, cut up differently but when placed on each person's plate, the amount of dessert is about the same.

Thank you.