New York – Budget cuts will not disrupt the medical examiner’s office, the city promised this week.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Mayor Michael Bloomberg will allocate an extra $16 million to the chief medical examiner’s office, to make up for the state’s cuts to the agency, so that the medical examiner can continue his work, a mayoral spokesman said.
“The mayor is committed to making sure that these vital services, as well as public safety, will not be affected by these recent state cuts,” the spokesman said in an email.
Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch said last week that the state’s 27 percent cut to his budget would force him to lay off nearly a third of his 600-person staff and would severely hamper his effort to identify 9/11 remains.
As was reported on VIN News last week, that NYS Senator Eric Adams, Assemblyman David Weprin joined by Rabbi Mendy Rosenberg founder of Chesed Shel Emes, and Rabbi Yanky Meyer founder of Misaskim, two of the most prominent organizations in the state of New York helping Jewish families in time of bereavement and grief where present at the conference to show their support and disappointment to urge officials to reinstate funding to the Office of the Medical Examiner.
It was not immediately clear where the $16 million would come from within the city’s budget.
Zvi Gluck, Government liaison to Chesed Shel Emes released the following statement:
We are extremely grateful that the Hon. Mayor Mike Bloomberg has shown what leadership means. Restoring the money to the Medical Examiners office helps out all New Yorkers in many ways. Making sure that people can maintain their religious beliefs with dignity and respect, and continue to ensure that our departed can be buried in a timely manner, is a true act of kindness, that can never be repaid. Allowing the crime labs to operate in the way that no other city can duplicate, and bring perpetrators to justice, helps all of us. If the medical examiners office would have lost this funding, these are just a few of the problems that would have occurred. Imagine having to tell a family of a loved one that the burial will be delayed because there isn’t money to have people working, or to tell the victims of a crime that the criminal can’t be brought to justice just yet, because of budget cuts.
We are very happy with what the Mayor has done, and wish him much success in all his endeavors.
See below Video, On March 23 Jewish organizations protested the proposed cuts.
Look what we could accomplish when we work together…. A big thumbs up to both leaders and orgs for taking care of this important issue that only effects ppl in their most vulnerable time.
Thank you Rabbi Edgar Gluck for all your work. Behind every press relese and publicity stunt of some orgnizations there are a few selfless people left in the world.
“and would severely hamper his effort to identify 9/11 remains.”
Ten years later?
2 look what u just did, here we have a chance to look at the positive of working together, and u miss the whole point.
I cannot understand how one of the most important cities on the face of the entire planet can even begin to think it can manage without a medical examiner’s department.