The federal budget cuts that started taking effect last week will hit the city for $800 million, the city’s budget director said at a council hearing on Monday.

Budget Director Mark Page said a revenue gap for the city is likely because the sequester cuts, an automatic $85 billion reduction in federal spending, were not taken into account in the mayor’s proposed budget for 2013-2014, The Daily News reports.

Local cuts could breakdown as follows:

• $500 million hit to Hurricane Sandy aid
• $75 million less for Medicaid funding for city hospitals
• $60 million in lost funding for city housing
• $200 million in cuts spread between other city agencies.

If lawmakers in Washington reach a deal to reduce the nationwide cuts, the impact on the city could be minimized, Page said.

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President Barack Obama has reached out to Republican and Democratic lawmakers in search of a resolution to automatic across-the-board government spending cuts, a White House official said on Sunday, but Republican congressional leaders offered little hope for a quick solution.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, both expressed confidence that there would not be a government shutdown at the end of the month amid the showdown with Obama over federal spending.

“I don’t think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner said on the NBC program “Meet the Press” as he put the blame squarely on Obama and his fellow Democrats.

“It’s time for the president and Senate Democrats to get serious about the long-term spending problem that we have,” Boehner said.

Obama late on Friday formally ordered broad cuts in government spending after he and congressional Republicans failed to reach a deal to avert the automatic reductions that could dampen economic growth and curb military readiness.

Government agencies now will begin to cut a total of $85 billion from their budgets from now through September 30 under automatic reductions known as “sequestration.” Half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon.

Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Obama spoke on Saturday afternoon with a select group of lawmakers to try to find a path out of the current fiscal crisis – a “bipartisan compromise.” He did not identify the lawmakers to whom Obama spoke.

“He’s reaching out to Democrats who understand we have to make serious progress on long-term entitlement reform, and Republicans who realize that if we had that type of entitlement reform, they’d be willing to have tax reform that raises revenues to lower the deficit,” Sperling said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Obama did not call McConnell or Boehner, Sperling said, noting that the president had met with them on Friday in a meeting that failed to resolve the issue.

McConnell played down the severity of the automatic cuts, describing them as modest.

“We’re willing to talk to him (Obama) about reconfiguring the same amount of spending reduction over the next six months,” McConnell said on CNN. “The American people look at this and say, ‘Gee, I’ve had to cut my budget more than this,’ – probably on numerous occasions over the last four years because we’ve had such a tepid economy now for four long years.”

Congress and Obama could still halt the cuts in the weeks to come, but neither side has expressed any confidence they will do so. Both Democrats and Republicans set the automatic cuts in motion during feverish deficit-reduction efforts in August 2011.

Democrats predicted the cuts could soon cause air-traffic delays, meat shortages as food safety inspections slow down, losses to thousands of federal contractors and damage to local economies across the country, particularly in the hardest-hit regions around military installations.

At the heart of Washington’s persistent fiscal crises is disagreement over how to slash the budget deficit and gain control of the $16 trillion national debt, bloated over the years by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and government stimulus for the ailing economy.

Obama wants to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts and tax hikes. Republicans do not want to concede again on taxes after doing so in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” at the New Year.

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Major New York state and city programs will take an immediate hit of $3.4 million in funding from nationwide budget cuts, starting on Friday, Mar. 1, according to numbers released by the White House. And that’s only the beginning of a series of cuts over nine months that will affect everything from childcare programs to senior citizens to public housing and Superstorm Sandy aid. The cuts come as part of the so-called sequester, an automatic $85 trillion reduction in national spending cuts, that goes into affect today, in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. The sequester is part of a compromise passed by Congress when they raised the debt ceiling in 2011. As part of that agreement, if the government failed to cut $1.2 trillion from the national debt, then automatic spending cuts, called the sequester, would go into affect.
“Financially it will not be as impactful on the state government as it would be on individuals because it’s more assistance that goes to individuals,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
The state’s own financial plan for dealing with the sequester estimates that New York could lose up to five billion in Federal funds over the next nine years if the national budget cuts are enacted.
The sequester would cut $42.7 million from primary and secondary education in New York for the next school year. About 590 teachers and aides would lose their jobs and 120 schools would lose funding, affecting 70,000 students, according to White House numbers. Special education would also lose $36.3 million. New York City schools have already lost $240 million in January after failing to meet a deadline on finalizing the new teacher evaluation system.
The cuts would also affect childcare and vaccines for children in New York, leaving up to 2,300 children without care and 7,170 unvaccinated for common diseases such as measles and Hepatitis B. Roughly 4,300 low-income children would be removed from Head Start and Early Head Start programs, which provide educational support to children under five years old.
Government-provided meals for senior citizens would also see $1,447,000 in cuts.
College funding programs for low-income students would be cut by 5.1 percent, as would research funding from national organizations, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein of The City University of New York said in a statement.
In addition, up to 100,000 workers in the state could lose their jobs due to the sequester, a new study by Stephen Fuller from George Mason University estimated.
Sequestration would also cause a $375 million cut from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief budget, which could affect Sandy recovery efforts.
With $1.94 billion cut from public housing support, the New York City Housing Authority reported that sequestration could lead to a 9 percent loss of funding and a $110 deficit, reducing services by 20 percent.

Education cuts

The sequester would cut $42.7 million from primary and secondary education in New York. About 590 teachers and aides would lose their jobs and 120 schools would lose funding. Special education would also lose $36.3 million, according to White House numbers. Special education would also lose $36.3 million.

Meals for senior citizens

Government-provided meals for senior citizens would see $1,447,000 in cuts in New York.

Job cuts

Up to 100,000 workers in the state could lose their jobs due to the sequester, a study from George Mason University estimated.

Public housing cuts

The New York City Housing Authority reported that sequestration could lead to a 9 percent loss of funding and a $110 deficit, reducing services by 20 percent.

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