NEW YORK BUDGETS $58.5 BILLION FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009

Mayor Bloomberg on thursday presented a $58.5 billion preliminary budget for fiscal year 2009 that requires the Police, Fire and Education departments - which had been spared in the past - to provide savings this time.

The NYPD cut $95 million from its $3.6 billion budget, primarily through salaries saved from not reaching its authorized peak head count of 36,838.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said New Yorkers would hardly notice the reduction.

"Budget cuts are necessary," he said. "It's uncertain times and I think the public won't see a diminishment of service."

Kelly said he hoped to get the NYPD back up to full strength when an arbitration panel makes a decision on new salaries for rookie cops, who now earn a dismal $25,100 a year.

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More problematic was the $324 million being yanked out of the school system, which Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said would force him to leave "certain positions" unfilled.

"That's a significant amount of money," said one critic. "They're talking about reducing English-language learners and a master-teacher program. It's a serious cut."

Searching every corner for cash, the Department of Education planned to charge $5 million to schools as fees for "students who consume food but are not eligible for free or reduced lunch."

By comparison, the Fire Department got off easy.

It coughed up $23 million from its $1.3 billion budget, largely by projecting $14.6 million in higher Emergency Medical Service revenues and leaving 81 civilian positions unfilled.

In all, city agencies were able to find savings totaling $1.43 billion over two years, just shy of the $1.5 billion requested by the mayor.

Although the service impact was minimal, there was evidence that the good times are over for the near future.

The Sanitation Department planned to eliminate leaf collection to save $2.2 million.

Also wiped out were extra litter-basket collections, a $1.4 million expense the agency decided it could no longer afford.

Bloomberg was calm and steady - deliberately, he later conceded - as he delivered a plan to increase spending by 3.7 percent.

One chart depicted the financial blood-letting on Wall Street, where the city had expected profits of $16.8 billion last year and is now counting on $2.8 billion.

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The direct result: tax revenues for fiscal 2009, which begins July 1, are expected to come $1.29 billion below projections in June.

Nevertheless, Bloomberg made good on a pledge to retain the $400 property-tax rebate to small homeowners and the 7 percent property-tax cut enacted last year.

E. J. McMahon, a senior analyst at the Manhattan Institute, pointed out that the city would be spending more than it takes in under the mayor's proposal, with $3.8 billion being rolled into 2009 from previous years to make up the difference.

"Right now, what they've got on paper is a really big operating deficit next year," he said.

"It's a big hole, a really big hole, that they're plugging with everything they've accumulated."

d.seifman@nypost.com