Faced with a rebellion by the City Council, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has agreed to shift $4.2 million in next year’s budget to after-school programs and community schools.

Lamenting that she was faced by “obstructionism,” Rawlings-Blake announced today that she will trim back other expenditures, including graffiti removal, tree maintenance and grants management, to restore the proposed cuts to youth programs.

For weeks, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Budget Committee Chairwoman Helen L. Holton had threatened to shut down city government by refusing to approve the fiscal 2017 budget unless the youth funding was restored.

The $4.2 million will pay for about 3,000 children to participate in after-school programs and to operate a half dozen community schools.

“We have stretched this budget to its limits,” Rawlings-Blake said today, but “rather than engage in the politics of obstructionism, I sat down with my team, we sharpened our pencils and made even more difficult budget cuts that will directly impact city services.”

Still at issue are three programs – Experience Corps, Cooperative Extension and the day-care programs the Waverly and Northwood schools – that the mayor wants to chop and the Council wants to retain in the $2.6 billion budget that starts on July 1.