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With a vote of 49-1, the City Council approved on June 29 a $59.1 billion fiscal budget for 2009 that restores funding to classrooms and lets property tax cuts and rebates live at least another year.

Still, few area council members were pleased with their results.

“There were a lot of things a lot of people didn’t like and certainly the process was horrendous,” Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) said.

Councilman David Weprin (D-Hollis), chair of the council’s finance committee, said this was probably the toughest budget year of his seven years in the council, and even Speaker Christine Quinn told reporters following the vote that it was not something any of the council members wanted to pass, according to published reports.

The 2009 budget is an increase of 1.6 percent over the previous year; however, it is well below the projected 2.7 percent annual rate of inflation and as a result, cuts had to be made in numerous areas, including youth and senior programs. Council-sponsored initiatives were cut by 39 percent to help pay for the City’s priorities.

The council was able to restore $412 million to the budget that wasn’t included in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed budget. In doing so, the council fully funded the operational expenses of public schools by adding $129 million to the mayor’s proposal.

“As far as Queens is concerned, we benefited greatly from that,” said Dmytro Fedkowskyj, the Queens representative who sits on the Panel for Educational Policy. He said 235 schools in Queens would have been heavily impacted by the budget cuts had they gone through.

The council was also able to maintain the property tax rate cut of 7 percent for a second year and continue the $400 property tax rebate program for homeowners for the fifth year. The mayor had initially extinguished these programs in his earlier proposal.

While these additions were enough for almost all council members to vote in the affirmative, they weren’t enough to make them happy.

Councilman Avella accused Quinn of adding or cutting funding to various programs based on the speaker’s political ambitions, rather than merit.

Quinn has been rumored to be running for the mayoral seat in 2009, while Avella has already announced his bid for that position.

Avella criticized the council’s continued use of discretionary funds, which have come under fire this year since it was disclosed that Quinn’s office, and those of her predecessors, had set aside money in the name of phantom organizations to be distributed later outside the normal budgetary process to community groups. This year the council reduced the amount by 8 percent, but Avella said he is working on legislation that would do away with issuing pork and ensuring that all funding would have to be included in the budget and approved by the mayor and council.

Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) also faulted the budget, but unlike Avella, Gennaro blamed Albany and the mayor for the City being in a difficult financial position. He said the City currently sends between $11 and $12 billion more to the state than is returned in the form of state aid.

“Albany takes our money and subsidizes the rest of the state,” he said.

Gennaro hoped the situation in Albany could be remedied by electing a Democratic majority to the State Senate, which is currently run by Republicans. He said less than 10 percent of the Senate majority represents districts in New York City and as a result they are out of touch with the area’s needs.

While he has yet to officially announce, Gennaro is expected to challenge Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) for the 11th District Senate seat this year.

Councilman Weprin said he was disappointed the council was unable to restore all the mayor’s cuts, as it has in past years.

“We had some tough choices to make,” he said.

He was pleased the council was able to hold onto the property tax cut considering the cost of living is increasing so drastically.

But some programs had to suffer, particularly cultural institutions, after school programs and domestic violence initiatives, he said.

While the council was able to add $18 million to the City Housing Authority that wasn’t previously included in the mayor’s proposal, the agency still faces cuts which could result in the closing of senior and community centers.

A statement from NYCHA admitted the $18 million would “… allow us to partially maintain our network of youth and senior centers and community programs while we go through a process that will require difficult choices.”

A spokesman with the City Department for the Aging said Meals on Wheels would not be affected by shortfalls.

Cindy Katz, coordinator for community outreach and education with Queens Legal Services Corp., said the cuts to some programs would have a substantial impact on the organization’s ability to provide legal help for low-income communities in Queens.

“On a citywide basis, the amount of funding allocated to legal services is about 50 percent less than what we had received in the previous year,” she said.

While the Queens Library System budget was reduced, it wasn’t enough to end the six-day library service, which was previously under threat.

The system is still finalizing how it will absorb the cuts it did receive, said Jimmy Van Bramer, the director of government and community affairs for the system.

“We’re going to try to minimize the affect the people will feel,” he said.

Dan Andrews, spokesman for Borough President Helen Marshall, said the office was still studying the budget to determine how Queens will be affected.