NEW YORK (AP) -- Anthony Johnson Jr. had been waiting for this since he was a teenager -- to be sworn in as a police academy cadet for the New York Police Department.
But the 22-year-old from Suffolk County, on Long Island, was told this week he'd have to put his dream on hold: The academy class was canceled because of financial problems stemming from the monthlong standoff in the state Senate.
New York City is counting on revenue from new tax measures that the state must approve. But without action in Albany, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had no choice but to order a hiring freeze this week because the city is losing money without those tax hikes.
The Senate has been in a standoff since a June 8 coup by a Republican-dominated coalition versus the Democratic majority.
The 250 police cadets are among more than 1,000 planned hires that Bloomberg delayed indefinitely. Johnson, whose father is assigned to the NYPD's elite Emergency Service Unit, was supposed to be sworn in Wednesday.
"I'm angry, I'm frustrated,'' Johnson told The Associated Press. "Upstate, they're dropping the ball. They have people's lives in their hands.''
Johnson just returned from serving four years in the military, a path he took because he wanted to be a police officer right out of high school but was too young. He said he'll live with his parents while he decides whether to wait for the academy or get another job.
Beatrice Lozada, a 30-year-old single mother in Long Island's Nassau County, doesn't have any time to wait. She was on the city's list to become an EMT and had been waiting for an opening, but the city froze 90 of those hires, which were planned for later this month.
"I've been really waiting for that job,'' she said. "Now I'm going to search for something else.''
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