New York City has asked Albany for permission to borrow money to maintain city services needed by our residents. The city desperately needs those funds to help fill the huge hole in our local economy created by the coronavirus pandemic. If Albany doesn’t become our partner in this effort, our ability to bounce back will be significantly diminished and we will continue to see impacts to local services such as street cleaning and garbage pickup.

This budget gap has forced the city to consider layoffs, which will mean tens of thousands of families will struggle to pay their bills and stay in their homes.

We are in this position because our city has been the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in this country, with hundreds of thousands of infections and more than 23,000 deaths.

The shutdowns of offices and businesses to limit the virus’s spread has led to a huge contraction of our economy, and the local unemployment rate has already passed 20%.

To deal with the massive shortfall we are facing, we have recommended the method the city relied on after 9/11 — the Transitional Finance Authority (TFA), which borrowed billions in the public markets for both operational and long-term spending made necessary by the terrorist attacks.

This commitment would help keep up city services until the local economy — and local tax revenues — fully recover. Experts believe this could be at least two or three years, even if there is no major second wave of the virus.

Ideally, we could rely on substantial help from the federal government. But so far, Congress has not been able to patch together a stimulus fund that would help many cities and states, including New York State, deal with the massive budget crisis they are facing.

There has to be a strong reason for borrowing to meet daily operational needs rather than for long-term capital investments like roads, bridges and schools. New York City learned that lesson in the 1970s, when lax budgeting and planning led to the fiscal crisis.

But New York’s stronger accounting standards and economic success had left the city budget in a strong position — until COVID-19 happened.

COVID-19 was a crisis unlike any we’ve ever seen. It took aim at our most vulnerable communities and laid bare the inequities that have so tragically been a problem in our city and our nation for generations.

This is not the time for austerity measures to weaken our already strained social safety net. Many of those who are the most harmed by the forced shuttering of our economy can afford it the least, and rely on the types of services that the city provides.

And it’s certainly not the time to lay off 22,000 municipal workers, as Mayor de Blasio is threatening. Many of those workers kept our city functioning in its darkest hours. Our unemployment rate right now is double the highest it was during the 2008 recession following the financial meltdown.

We know we can’t rest on borrowing alone. The city must continue to review the budget closely to identify targeted savings without scrapping programs critical to New Yorkers.

In addition to the borrowing authorization, there is another important step the state could take to help avoid the layoffs the mayor has proposed. With Albany’s help, the city could offer a retirement incentive for senior workers, replacing them with newer employees, saving money while maintaining services.

We hope that a new federal administration this January will push through a stimulus fund that would provide real assistance to New York and other localities. Such a measure would help reduce — or even eliminate — the need for TFA borrowing.

But we can’t wait. We need Albany’s help now to let us do what is necessary to deal with one of the most extraordinary crises in the city’s history.