The head count in Mayor Bloomberg’s office has swelled to the highest level of his seven-year tenure – prompting him to order a massive cut over the next 19 months, The Post has learned.

Figures posted on the city’s Web site show that the mayor’s office had 492 employees as of September.

At the end of the 2007 fiscal year in June, the figure stood at 451.

The low point, 404, was reached in October 2005.

When The Post first examined the payroll last March, mayoral aides defended the upward trend by saying employees were added to address specific policy initiatives launched by Bloomberg in his second term, including tackling poverty, combating illegal guns, and the sweeping environmental agenda known as PlaNYC.

But with the economy in trouble, the mayor has put on the brakes and shifted to reverse.

He’s ordered a 10 percent reduction in the “authorized” head count – the maximum allowable payroll – which now stands at 521.

That would bring the number of mayoral employees down to 469.

The mayor’s office doesn’t just cover the people working at City Hall. It actually encompasses a wide swath of titles, from the executive chef at Gracie Mansion to the director of a domestic-violence response team to the criminal-justice coordinator.

Mark Lavorgna, a mayoral spokesman, said the cutback would be accomplished by attrition through June 30, 2010.

“This is leading from the front,” he said. “We’re asking the entire city government to do more with less. We are asking our staff to do more with less. Ten percent [cut] is a number [at which] we believe we can still accomplish the goals we have.”

Bloomberg has announced plans to cut the entire city work force by 3,000 – including some 500 layoffs – to help deal with a projected $4 billion budget gap over 18 months.

Source: NY Post