Precarious funding for MOPD

Jacobson

Go back a little. So, you met Eunice Fiorito at one of these meeting?

Allison

I may have met her at a meeting, and then she asked me to come in. She knew who I was because I was running Jened. She knew who I was, and she had a series of meetings with people--Nick Pagano, people in the field--and called us in just to pick our brain. I remember that's my first conscious recollection. And then she hired me, and I ran the outreach unit, the advocacy unit, and then I became the deputy within three months.

The whole place--we were all on borrowed [budget] lines. Everybody--there wasn't one--you know, what they did is they played games. They didn't really fund it; they took existing lines that were empty, which were already in the budget, and they transferred the line to the mayor's office, so the person you're working next to is on an HPD [Housing Preservation and Development] line, and you're on a Mental Health and Mental Retardation line, and somebody else is on a DOT [Department of Transportation] line, and somebody else is on another line, so there is no budget for this. The budget is Eunice Fiorito, her salary, and maybe a secretary.

That's the only--that's the way it shows up in the budget. It's an old trick. Part of the time--what you do is you avoid criticism because he [the mayor] doesn't want her spending a lot of money. You have to be cautious because at any point in time the commissioner of DOT can say, "I really need that line back," and that line goes back to that agency, and then what happens to the person that's on it? So there's a little bit of--it's very precarious.

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I was on a line from the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. I didn't get paid for nine months, I remember. I don't know how--

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Allison

She asked me to come over and the money was--it was, like, $14,000, big money. But I never saw it for nine months. It's a good thing I didn't have a mortgage. I would have been homeless. But that's the way the city did things. I mean, everything moved at a glacial pace.

Jacobson

When did that office really become established?

Allison

It was around June or July of '73, the executive order was signed. That's my recollection. I came on shortly after it was established.

Jacobson

But when did it get its own budget?

Allison

Well, that took a long time. I remember when Abe Beame became mayor, the first year he was mayor we were locked out of the budget. We were not in the budget at all. To this day, I don't know whether that was deliberate or not. Stanley Friedman was--no, Stanley was not the deputy mayor. I'm trying to remember. Larry Casanova was the deputy mayor at the time, and Eunice had a demonstration in front of Tweed Courthouse, where--was it Tweed Courthouse or was it on the steps of City Hall? Because we weren't in the budget.

They claimed it was an oversight, that the mayor--Abe Beame--he called her You-Niece. "You-Niece, don't be upset, You-Niece."

Jacobson

He was a short man.

Allison

He was a man of--he was horizontally challenged [laughter]. But he was a nice man. He was a very nice man.

Jacobson

That was '74?.

Allison

Yes. No, the election was in the odd year. It was '75. If you recall--you were still here--

Jacobson

Yes.

Allison

You recall the Beame administration. He had the fiscal crisis, he had the blackout, the second blackout. Lindsay had the first, and they caught the Son of Sam.

Jacobson

Right.

Allison

Hugh Carey was the governor, and they put together the Financial Control Board to oversee the financial dealings of the city because the city was bankrupt.