By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Budget cuts will not disrupt the monumental task of identifying the remains of 9/11 victims, the city promised this week.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg will allocate an extra $16 million to the chief medical examiner's office, to make up for the state's cuts to the agency, so that the medical examiner can continue his work, a mayoral spokesman said Monday.
"The mayor is committed to making sure that these vital services, as well as public safety, will not be affected by these recent state cuts," the spokesman said in an email.
Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch said last week that the state's 27 percent cut to his budget would force him to lay off nearly a third of his 600-person staff and would severely hamper his effort to identify 9/11 remains.
Only about 40 percent of those who died in the World Trade Center attack have been identified by the recovered remains. The medical examiner's office sill has thousands of bone fragments and other remains that are awaiting testing.
Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son was killed on 9/11, said he was glad to hear of the city's decision.
"It was a shame from the start to see that the state would not have any feelings about taking money from the medical examiner's budget," said Ielpi, founder of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center. "I'm extremely happy that Mayor Bloomberg stepped in and did the right thing."
It was not immediately clear where the $16 million would come from within the city's budget.
