Donald D. Kummerfeld, a budget director and deputy mayor, the emphasis on financial discipline policy and an excellent touch to help New York City from bankruptcy in 1970, died Thursday at Jersey City.
He was 78 years.
I was sick, and gardening in the intense heat and died in a hospital emergency room, his wife, Elizabeth, said.
In 1975, financial markets closed the door to New York after years of indebtedness, and the State of New York intervened to issue bonds to run the city. However, the State requested financial rigor.
Mr. Kummerfeld role was to attend the details of the cleaning of bad accounting practices of the city, imposing budget cuts and for the first time that prolong the years of financial planning in the future.
Richard Ravitch, an advisor to Governor Hugh L. Carey during the crisis, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the work was Mr. Kummerfeld said. "To have a balanced budget, this is what you do"
Mr. Kummerfeld led to years of experience as a budget official in Washington and as a investment banker on Wall Street.
But those who worked with him say that his negotiation skills combined with his experience with numbers. The New York Times in 1977 quoted an official who had dealt with him, saying:
"What I like about Don is that at least does not pretend to understand. Even when you put in the position of having to act as 2 and 2 is 5, you can say, 'Don, please' And he looks at you and shake his shoulders and said: 'Yes, but this is our policy here.' "
In an interview, Felix Rohatyn, who led the agency to restructure the debt of the city during the crisis, said: "What has brought to the table and had a great knowledge of the facts and politics of the situation."
Your signature does not necessarily mean that popular. The news at the time said the agency goes up in tears after meeting with Mr. Kummerfeld. At a public hearing has been accused of "insensitivity."
But medicine has worked hard, and since 1977 the city was beginning to turn a corner. "It is not always obvious, but the city is run now, mainly because Kummerfeld," said Peter C. Goldmark Jr., the director of the state budget, told the Times.
When Edward I. Koch, after defeating Mr. Beame and other Democratic candidates in the three main rivals in the general election, became mayor of 01 January 1978, Mr. Kummerfeld asked to remain as deputy mayor, but without title of Deputy Prime Minister. Mr. Kummerfeld refused.
Mr. Koch said in an interview on Tuesday that it had decided not to have a deputy mayor of New York because I wanted to see who takes the city personally. "It would have been wonderful," Koch said of Mr. Kummerfeld, he described as "a true hero who helped save New York."
Mr. Kummerfeld once accepted an appointment by Governor Carey to be Executive Director of the Board of Control of New York state financial emergency.
This meant that Mr. Kummerfeld be responsible for overseeing the financial operations of the city that had just left. "I know for a fact that all the details of what to look for," he said.
Mr. Kummerfeld has continued with the direct participation of the American Society of Rupert Murdoch and two trade groups, publishers of journals in America and the International Federation of the Periodical Press.
It is also recommended that the new mayor of New York and other elected officials on tax matters.
Working group of citizens led by Mr. Ravitch and A. Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve will release a report on the week's state budget crisis and face. Will be dedicated to Mr. Kummerfeld, who has a lot of work into it.
Besides his wife, the former Elizabeth Miller, Mr. Kummerfeld, who lived in Jersey City, survive him his daughter, Theodosia Kummerfeld, and a grandson.
Along with the public service, gardening is a passion of Mr. Kummerfeld, for many years and grew vegetables and flowers on the terrace of his penthouse, Fifth Avenue. His hobby is reading seed catalogs.
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