NEW YORK, NY April 05, 2007 —In City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's response to Mayor Bloomberg’s budget the Speaker said City’s revenues will run at least $600 million higher than the Mayor's estimate. WNYC's Bob Hennelly has more on the City Council's counter proposal to the mayor's preliminary spending plan.

REPORTER: Speaker Quinn's says the Council's detailed alternative budget can cut the cost of running the City by hundreds of millions of dollars. Those savings will act as a down payment on funding several new initiatives aimed at helping what she feels is the City's increasingly beleaguered middle class.

QUINN: We also need to recognize that our economy is not diversified and it is not one that has touched every New Yorker in the same way. Therefore we have tried to focus the start of our new initiatives to help people like renters, like homeowners, like senior citizens like small businesses.

REPORTER: The big ticket Council items include a $300 tax credit for renters, increase tax exemptions for seniors and the disabled, as well cutting taxes on small businesses. Quinn is also calling for the establishment of 10 full service health care centers to be sited in the City's most chronically under served neighborhoods. Just how far apart the Council and the Mayor are on the budget won't be clear until he submits his final executive budget later this month.