If you’ve been wondering why the city has been a whole lot more colorful — and not in a good way — it’s because the budget for removing graffiti has disappeared, and not everyone is happy about it, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday.

“We’ve been getting a lot of complaints about graffiti,” said Manhattan City Councilman Ben Kallos. “We’re seeing more graffiti complaints now than ever before since I’ve been a council member.”

Kallos is not exaggerating. In a depressing sign of the times — a return to the bad old days of the ’70s and ’80s — graffiti has been popping up all over the city. On storefronts, buildings, construction barricades, the Fairway sign on the West Side Highway, and most visibly on the surrogates court and David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building near City Hall, painted by City Hall protesters who still occupy City Hall park.

And there’s a reason.