Chirlane McCray’s ThriveNYC enjoys $2M staff of 14 amid budget crisis
There’s no money for regular trash pickups or to maintain city parks, but Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife enjoys a 14-member staff — including a $70,000 videographer that captured her baking cookies during the pandemic.
Some of the Chirlane McCray staffers, who cost city taxpayers a combined $2 million a year, work for the first lady’s $1.25 billion mental health initiative ThriveNYC that’s
come under fire for its lack of metrics.
“Whatever happened to ThriveNYC?” asked City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens).
“How much taxpayer money will the mayor’s wife pilfer before leaving office? How can she sleep at night hiring these hacks knowing so many other city workers are facing layoffs this fall? This is a disgrace!” Ulrich fumed.
McCray has a core team of eight staffers, according to a recent list provided to The Post following a Freedom of Information Law request filed in October 2019. That despite the city facing
layoffs of 22,000 municipal workers over the coronavirus-induced budget crisis.
There’s a $117,000-a-year speechwriter, even though McCray held that same position under former Mayor David Dinkins, and a $150,000-a-year senior advisor who was recruited in April after de Blasio
announced a hiring freeze to help close a $7 billion deficit caused by the coronavirus.
But she has at least six other city employees deputized to her office from other public agencies, as was
first reported by The City.
They include the $70,000 videographer McCray brought on in February. The shooter, who is listed as a Dept. of Health employee in city records, filmed the First Lady
making ginger snaps on April 2 during the coronavirus lockdown.
Other members of the shadow staff who participated in a “Team Lunch” in The Bronx in January 2019, according to McCray’s public schedule, are a $143,000-a-year public relations director, also from the Dept. of Health, and a special assistant from the mayor’s office who makes $115,000.
Chirlane McCray enjoys $2M staff of 14 as NYC lets trash pile up
