Women protest then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the GOP in front of Trump Tower in New York. | AP Photo/Richard Drew NYPD official warns City about Trump's impact on police budget

President-elect Donald Trump may blow up Mayor Bill de Blasio’s police budget.

A police budget official said Tuesday the New York Police Department will likely surpass its more than $550 million overtime budget because each day the president-elect resides inside his 58-story tower, located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, presents a security job “larger than what the Secret Service could provide. And that will have to fall on the shoulders of the NYPD.”


And NYPD deputy commissioner of management and budget Vincent Grippo told the City Council that there may have to be cuts in the number of officers on patrol if Washington does not send enough funds to cover the cost of protecting Trump.

“If we get that reimbursement, we won’t have a problem at the end of the year,” he told lawmakers at a Council hearing on the costs of security for Trump Tower. “If we don’t get that reimbursement, we likely are. And the only option we would have to avoid that, would be to essentially take reductions from officers on patrol across the city to handle —"

At that point, Grippo was cut off by Finance Committee Chairwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, who called the idea “absolutely unacceptable.”

Never before has a president of the Untied States spent significant time in a skyscraper in the heart of the largest city in the country, as Trump is likely to do, with his wife and young son remaining in the city for now.

Tuesday's hearing sought to examine the economic impact Trump, and his ensuing security footprint, is having on local businesses and the city. Councilman Dan Garodnick, chairman of the Economic Development Committee, which organized the hearing, said, “We want to remind [Trump] that he is about to travel with a very big footprint. We appreciate that he has a home here, but we also hope that he does not use it too often.”

Trump has said he will move into the White House after his inauguration. The president-elect has numerous homes around the country, and U.S. presidents are allowed, under federal rules, to designate one home outside of Washington D.C. as their official residence.

A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday’s hearing, or Trump’s residency plans.

Already, New York City sent a request for $37.4 million in federal reimbursements for security costs between between Nov. 9 and Jan. 20 (the day after election day, up through inauguration day). Congress has so far approved just $7 million in funds.

According to Grippo, that funding gap is expected to grow with each day Trump resides in New York City.

Without enough federal funds, “what you will see at the end of the year is an exponentially higher overtime budget, dependent on the number of days Trump does decide to reside in Midtown,” Grippo said. “You will see that impact in additional overtime that the department occurred which will likely push us above the proposed overtime budget we had in the beginning of the year.”

The NYPD overtime budget is about $550 million, according to Grippo.

The idea of surpassing it angered Ferreras-Coplend, who has spent years trying to rein in that cost.

“I’m very, very fearful that in a couple of weeks, when I have you here before me, you basically blew up the entire plan you’ve been proposing to me for the last three years, about bringing down overtime. Now it’s completely blown out of the water,” she said.

The hearing came one day after Trump’s transition team announced the appointment of his son-in-law, real estate developer Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser. Mayor Bill de Blasio — who has positioned himself as a progressive foil against Trump — welcomed Kushner’s appointment. “He’s someone who really cares about New York City and is someone that would be very helpful to us. So I’m certainly pleased he’ll be in that role,” de Blasio told reporters yesterday.

At the hearing, Councilman I. Daneek Miller said he wanted each city agency impacted by Trump’s security needs to outline contingency plans if sufficient federal aide does not arrive.

And it's not just the city that's bearing the cost of Trump's security: businesses near Trump Tower are also losing money, according to officials who testified at the hearing.

Forty million dollars in economic activity “may have been lost” by local retailers, according to the president of the Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District, Tom Cusick, citing private conversations he's had with local business owners. The hardest-hit business, he said, were on 5th Avenue, between 55th and 58th Streets, and on 57th Street, between Madison Avenue and Avenue of the Americas.

There has been “a significant loss of economic activity during the most important shopping season of the year” and it is “likely to get worse after the inauguration,” said Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business membership organization.

Both Cusick and Wylde dismissed the call to block vehicular traffic near the tower, as was suggested by Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s former transportation commissioner.

Among changes Cusick would like to see: move television cameras from the west to the east side of 5th Avenue; “modify the 56th Street checkpoint to allow a direct lead into Gucci, which would alleviate” pedestrian back-up in the area; and move parades to either south of the tower, or onto a different avenue.