De Blasio Names New Budget Director

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has named Dean Fuleihan as the city's new director of the Office of Management and Budget. 

Fuleihan is an Albany insider, having served more than three decades in top posts in the state Assembly, including as the chief fiscal and policy adviser to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He was its principal staff negotiator on the $130 billion state budget.

And despite being associated with one of the most widely-derided budget processes in the state, Fuleihan is generally well-liked by Albany insiders, including by unions with whom he'll have to negotiate.

"We are going to be facing literally an unprecedented situation in the history of this city. We've never had all of our labor contracts unresolved simultaneously," de Blasio said at a press conference announcing the appointment at the CUNY tech campus in downtown Brooklyn. 

De Blasio said it would take a government veteran to make "progressive" change, a word he kept repeating in describing Fuleihan, and a signal that his own budget negotiations may be a "Nixon goes to China" scenario, where the Democrat negotiates the deals with unions that eluded Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Fuleihan will need the good will in negotiating de Blasio's proposed tax on the wealthy for pre-K, but the newly appointed budget director maintained the tax was "tremendously popular" and has an "excellent" chance of passage.

After leaving the Assembly, Fuliehan, who is of Lebanese descent,  joined the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering as an executive vice president. 

De Blasio calls Fuleihan a true progressive and innovator.

“During the hardest of times, when we had a Republican governor and a State Senate determined to leave New York City’s most vulnerable to fend for themselves, Dean Fuleihan stood his ground," de Blasio said. "Dean is a true progressive who understands not only our limits, but our possibilities. He will ensure our priorities live up to both our responsibilities and our values.”