Tthe Board of Estimates meeting on the budget submitted by Mayor William O'Dwyer was the longest in the Board's history, according to The Sunday Times. It started at 11 AM and went on to 3:30 AM, with lunch and dinner breaks. The most contentious issue was salaries and wages for the city's civil servants. Over 5,000 city employees attended and 104 speakers from several CIO and AFL units that represented them got up to speak. They were displeased over the amounts allocated for wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments. The speakers targeted their remarks particularly at those members of the Board who had been elected with union votes. Among the speakers was fiery City Councilman Michael J, Quill , who was also the national president of the Transportation Workers of America, CIO. Another union speaker said that 2,000 members of the welfare department that his union represented had threatened to quit.
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City Council President Vincent R. Impelliteri presided over the session. Mayor O'Dwyer did not attend. By the time the gavel came down to close the meeting, the rest of the Board members had left and their seats were occupied by their deputies. Only the final speaker, James McCormick of Queens, who worked for the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, remained in the audience out of the huge crowd that had packed the room earlier. While several members of the Board were sympathetic to the speakers, privately they told the Times reporter that the city's financial condition would allow only limited adjustments. One of the major challenges of the O'Dwyer administration was trying to maintain fiscal responsibility at a time when a sense of entitlement was growing in the working class now that the Depression and the War were over. Ironically after the unions succeeded, many of their members moved to the suburbs or outer boroughs, bought houses and complained about high taxes.
The Board had until April 27 to act on the budget hearings, which had to be submitted to the city council for a vote by May 1. After the Board had signed off on the budget, the council could not increase any allocations but did have the power to reduce them, subject to the mayor's veto. The Times pointed out that the hearings brought into the spotlight the accelerating movement of city employees into organized labor. CIO, AFL and Civil Service Forum units were competing for membership. The units affiliated with the CIO, which later would merge with the more moderate AFL, were more militant. The Civil Service Forum, the equivalent of a company union, was the most conservative. O'Dwyer had no comment on the hearings. but had said he intended to set up a system of bargaining between city employees and department heads.