With the City Council suing the Mayor over who has control of New York City's budget, City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi has quietly used the municipal computer system to impose his own temporary solution.
For weeks, the Council and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani have fought over whose list of cuts should be used to address a $1.1 billion budget gap. They are to take their fight to court next week. Until the lawsuit is settled, Mr. Hevesi has decided that both sides' cuts will be made.
The Mayor has already imposed his. So last weekend, Mr. Hevesi's aides programmed the first $20 million of the Council's cuts into the computer system that controls city spending.
The action has brought screams of pain from some of the agencies that the Council trimmed. It has also put Mr. Giuliani in another budget dispute, this one with the Comptroller.
"It's beyond his authority to do it," said Deputy Mayor Peter J. Powers, contesting Mr. Hevesi's move. Corporation Counsel Paul A. Crotty wrote to Mr. Hevesi that he had "no legal basis" for his action.
But Mr. Hevesi countered in an interview yesterday that he was taking the only fiscally prudent step he could to make sure the city would be able to handle the budget plan the court ultimately approves. "You can't pay the bills if there is a possibility that there's no money to pay them," he said.
Mr. Hevesi also suggested that his action might prompt the two sides to work out a compromise. "I am clearly not attempting to supersede the Mayor and Council in their authority to adopt the budget," he said. "It's their responsibility. We want to be helpful."
The Council is dissatisfied with Mr. Hevesi's actions because he put into effect its cuts but not its program restorations.
The dispute between the Mayor and City Council began late last month when the Council voted to alter the series of spending cuts Mr. Giuliani outlined in October to close the gap in the $31.6 billion budget.
Mr. Giuliani, saying that the City Charter grants the Council only limited power to accept or reject a midyear reduction in the budget, vetoed the Council's budget plan and said he would move ahead with his own.
The Council voted overwhelmingly to override the Mayor's veto and this week, filed suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in a test of the extent of its budgetary powers. It was the first time since the City Council was created in 1938 that it had sued a Mayor.
Since his battle with the Council began, Mr. Giuliani has said that he would simply enact on his own the $800 million in spending reductions he outlined to balance the budget.
And his administration quickly programmed those reductions into the municipal computer, cutting everything from day-care centers to bridge maintenance to youth services. The computer serves to control city spending by showing whether an agency has enough money when it tries to buy supplies or enter into a new contract.
Steven I. Newman, the executive deputy comptroller, said that on top of Mr. Giuliani's cuts, the comptroller's office programmed some of the Council's $96.6 million in spending reductions into the computer -- specifically, those affecting equipment and supplies but not personnel.
The Council cut money to agencies like the Finance Department; City Planning Department; the Office of Operations, which the Mayor uses to ride herd on other city agencies, and the Community Assistance Unit, which has traditionally been a powerful political tool for the Mayor.
Mr. Newman said in the case of the Community Assistance Unit, the Council cut half of the department's $1.2 million for supplies and equipment. Since the fiscal year is half over, he said, there may be nothing left in the account. "It's the only case I know of where the money taken away is likely to be all they have," he said.
The Comptroller's office also cut the Office of Operations by $100,000, the City Planning Department by $70,000 and the Transportation Department and the General Services Department, which maintains city buildings and property, by about $3 million each.
The Council's budget also calls for cutting 2,000 jobs on Jan. 1 in order to restore other jobs and services that the Council considers a greater priority. But Mr. Newman said the Comptroller had not made the personnel cuts.
"That's a decision we're going to have to face in late December," he said, adding that he hoped the Mayor and Council would have resolved their dispute by then, either by talking or through a court ruling.
With court arguments set for Thursday, Mr. Giuliani and City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone met yesterday, afterward instructing their aides to begin a new round of negotiations. Mr. Giuliani said the two leaders had "a very good discussion" and narrowed their differences, though he did not elaborate.
