A driver of a snow plow stopped to help a stuck ambulance in Brooklyn during Sunday’s snow storm. New York City’s response to the monster snow storm has been hampered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to reduce the Sanitation Department’s workforce as part of citywide budget cuts, the head of the sanitation workers’ union said Monday. Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, said the department is currently down roughly 400 workers. “We are undermanned — we need another 400,” Nespoli said in a telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I mean this is a perfect example of why you need the man power in New York City. We’re shorthanded here.” Nespoli praised the workforce, saying the workers are doing a yeoman’s job given the weather conditions and the depleted troops. But he said the staff reductions have nevertheless taken a toll. “Whenever you cut your workforce down, it’s going to hurt services,” Nespoli said. “Guys are retiring, and they have to replace these people. You can’t allow a city like New York not to have the services that the public’s used to,” he said. “This is a major blizzard.” Asked to respond to Nespoli’s comments, Vito Turso, a spokesman for the Sanitation Department, replied, “Our dedicated sanitation workers have been doing a tremendous snow fighting job during this severe weather, working long shifts in terrible blizzard-like conditions.” The mayor, along with a slew of city officials, including Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, are scheduled to update New Yorkers on the city’s response to the storm during a briefing at City Hall Monday afternoon. To combat multibillion dollar deficits, Bloomberg has been aggressively cutting city agency budgets to keep the books balanced. Bloomberg unveiled last month his latest round of budget cuts, which called for a further reduction–via attrition–of 265 sanitation workers by June 2012. Despite the workforce reduction, Nespoli said he remains impressed with the amount of work accomplished. “We’re still going to pull the city out of this stuff within 12 hours,” Nespoli said. “By (Tuesday) morning, when the public’s ready to come back to work, everything will be open.” Earlier this year, Nespoli predicted the city would have trouble responding to a major snow storm. In September, when the mayor announced his decision to impose a citywide hiring freeze, Nespoli called the hiring stoppage a “foolish move.” “I don’t think it’s wise or safe,” Nespoli told the Journal at the time. “He should be hiring and maintaining the most important services for the public.” Nespoli said Monday he’s hoping the mayor will replenish the ranks as the economy improves. “We’re hoping that as soon as the economy and the city turn around a little more now, we can get back to our headcount,” he said. “When something like this here, as devastating as what this city got hit with yesterday and today, the more man power you have the better it is.” Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, confirmed that there are 400 fewer total workers at the department compared with two years ago. “However, the number of people assigned to snow fighting is the same,” Post said. “How? Other staff normally working in administrative positions have been reassigned to field posts.” While Nespoli argued that the staffing reduction had an impact on the city’s response, Post insisted workers are staffing the same number of plows and sanding trucks “as ever.” Blizzard, Budget, Snow