New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s preliminary 2004 budget calls for a cut of 17 percent from the proposed budget for the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs. “The city’s Independent Budget Office – in its March analysis of the mayor’s preliminary budget – is comparing the proposed 2004 funding to the June 2002 financial plan, which had set the DCA budget at $123.4 million. The new budget would be $102.5 million.