NEW YORK CITY--At a meeting of the Finance Committee on June 6 2006, Parks CommissionerAdrian Benepe told Councilmember Alan Gerson that there would be no cost to relocating the Washington Square fountain 23 feet to the east. In an August 2006 letter,Gerson stated that the City Council would withhold funds from the Parks Dept Washington Square redesign project if the costs of relocating the fountain were found to be more than a "negligible" amount more than keeping it in place. However, a recent study on the specifics of relocation set the costs at $508, 000. At a time when the Comptroller's Office estimates that the City is climbing into billion dollar deficits, half a million dollars is hardly a negligible sum.