NYC Mayor Eric Adams, City Council agree on record $101B budget
The price of everything is going up — even the city budget!
Mayor Adams and the City Council announced a record-breaking city budget at $101 billion Friday, blowing past the $98.7 billion budget deal his predecessor Bill de Blasio struck with lawmakers last year.
The deal between Hizzoner and Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) adds $1.4 billion in new spending on top of what the mayor proposed in his formal budget layout in April — and is $2.6 billion above City Hall’s preliminary estimate in January.
“This is not a dysfunctional Council and this is darn sure not a dysfunctional mayoral administration,” Adams said, as he and the lawmakers touted the earlier than usual budget deal. “We’re going to function and we’re going to GSD: Get stuff done.”
Still, the deal swells the Big Apple’s potential budget deficits over the coming three years, prompting new warnings from budget watchdogs over spending amid soaring inflation and worries about a potential recession.
The expected shortfall for the 2024 budget now stands at $4.2 billion, up from $3.9 billion projected in April. The expected gaps between expected revenues and spending for the 2025 and 2026 budgets grew too.
“The issue is whether we can sustainably afford that level of spending,” said Andrew Rein, the chief of the Citizens Budget Commission. “And the reality is, for our recurring revenues – we can’t.”
He added: “We know there’s fiscal cliffs baked into the budget and we know the economic recovery is rocky. Given those risks we really need to be very cautious going into the figure and those budget gaps may not be as manageable as they appear on the surface.”
Budget officials said that soaring inflation had pushed up the cost of fuel and other goods the Big Apple must purchase but were unable to immediately provide an estimate of the cost.
The budget is being fueled by federal stimulus money but also bigger than expected city tax revenues, thanks to banner profits from bankers and a red-hot local residential real estate market.
“We had unexpected tax increases, we had a better Wall Street than we thought we would have,” Adams explained.
The details of the agreement were still to be finalized Friday.
Officials said the spending package trimmed back a $152 million hike to the NYPD budget sought by Mayor Adams to an estimated $90 million boost, which will fund new labor contracts. Adams sought new funding for new video cameras for his controversial anti-gun squads, though the fate of that purchase remained unclear late Friday.
Overall, the NYPD’s budget will rise from $5.4 billion to $5.5 billion
Officials said the spending package keeps the mayor’s proposed $152 million boost to the Police Department to fund raises guaranteed by new contracts and new equipment purchases for Mayor Adams’ anti-gun squads, bringing its budget to $5.6 billion annually.
However, lawmakers refused to go along with City Hall’s request for an additional 574 corrections officers, arguing the scandal-scarred Rikers complex already has far more officers per inmate than any other major city lockup.
Both the mayor and speaker largely avoided discussing the more than $200 million from the Department of Education’s $31 billion-plus budget chopped due to enrollment declines in the city’s public schools until pressed by reporters afterward.
“We had a major drop in student population in the Department of Education,” said the mayor. “We’re not cutting, we’re adjusting based on the student population.”
But both Adamses talked up the areas of agreement between the mayor and lawmakers.
“This Council, our teams and this Speaker and this Mayor is saying to saying to every arm of government in this country, it is time to move to a place of what we agree on and not stay in a place on what we disagree on,” the mayor said, standing by the Speaker at the celebratory rally at City Hall, where the deal was rolled out.
“This was easy for us. When the Council stated the additional things they wanted to the budget and [my budget director] came to me, I said ‘that sounds like me’,” Hizzoner added, to laughs.
The two leaders rolled out a slew of new programs that came with new price tags attached including:
- There is a new $90 million property tax rebate for homeowners who make less than $250,000 annually, which will provide an estimated $150 in relief.
- The Big Apple’s summer employment programs for underserved teenagers and young adults have not only been expanded ($79 million), participants will now also receive free MetroCards so they can get to and from their jobs more easily ($11 million).
- Speaker Adams touted a new $5 million initiative that will give all 51 council members a grant of $100,000 to spend in their district for “programs that strengthen their communities to make them safer, or to provide victims services.”
- Also included is $10 million to help provide child care for illegal immigrants — a measure that was left out of the $220 billion state budget earlier this year, much to the dismay of left-leaning Democrats like those that hold a majority on the Council.
