NEW YORK—Leading up to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s budget announcement on Feb. 16, service unions funneled cash into newspaper and television ads to decry planned layoffs and pension-skimming.

In his budget presentation, the mayor confirmed that he would lay off more than 4,500 teachers and shed 1,666 more through attrition. Although the city has collected an extra $2 billion in tax revenue not in Bloomberg’s preliminary budget, a $600 million budget gap remains, even after layoffs. The mayor is now pushing to withhold $12,000 annually from retired police officers and firefighters to help close this gap.

On Feb. 18, the United Firefighters Association (UFA) and the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA) teamed up to blast Bloomberg as a liar. The full-page ad that appeared in publications such as the Chief-Leader, the City Hall newspaper, and El Diario, shows a grinning Bloomberg riding a bike toward a pothole. His nose and hat give him away as a lying Pinocchio.

As to what the bike and the pothole mean, the viewer can speculate, but the unions’ message about losing their supplementary pension fund is quite clear.

“Bloomberg’s Lies,” appears in large script across the top; the alleged lies are listed below.

The unions say the $12,000 received by retirees annually is not a Christmas bonus at all, but a “fund started in 1968 with contributions from police officers and firefighters.” They say the city has not paid into the variable supplement fund (VSF) since 1996.

Bloomberg looks to the much-need $1 billion the city would gain by cutting the VSF.

“Nobody wants to get cut back, I understand that,” Bloomberg told NY1. “We have to make a decision. Do we want to send out Christmas bonuses or have more teachers? It’s that kind of decision.”

Whatever the mayor may hope for, it is out of his hands. Albany has the decision-making power on this point and Bloomberg must wait as the unions lobby for their cause.

As the mayor insists cuts must be made, agencies and interest groups across the city are quick to explain why it shouldn’t come out of their pockets. The standard arguments are the wastefulness perceived in other areas of spending, or that the millionaire’s tax should be implemented.

UFA and PBA chose to point out the mayor’s failed investment in contractors and consultants. The unions allude to the CityTime scandal in which consultants schemed to skim $80 million from a payroll program they developed for the city.

The United Teachers’ Federation (UFT) chose the ever popular tax-the-rich-to-close-the-gap stance. The Daily News reports that the UFT spent $1 million on an ad campaign to advocate for a millionaire’s tax instead of teacher layoffs.

“This is about protecting our kids’ future Mr. Bloomberg, and that’s a lot bigger than any snowstorm,” comes the voice-over as the mayor’s face appears next to a snow globe on the television screen. The teachers’ union chose to highlight Bloomberg’s failures in the blizzard of 2010 for their public campaign, a 30-second snap running during “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “Iron Chef,” “Jeopardy!” and other popular programs.

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