On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams and City Council leaders announced a budget agreement that clears up some of the doubt about how the $107 billion projected to go into New York City coffers will be spent next fiscal year. The highest amount handled by the Big Apple in its history.
Bottom line: There will be no funding cuts for libraries, social services for the elderly, the City’s preschool program, or the City University of New York (CUNY).
Specifically, $7 million is contemplated to restore funding to food programs for the elderly.
In this announcement, it was also made clear that there will be no money sniping for the public school system, regardless of potential reductions in school enrollment.
Nor will a penny of the resources of municipal agencies such as the Department of Social Services (DSS) be touched, where vital programs such as SNAP coupons and temporary emergency shelters are administered.
In the long list of social program items, it is emphasized that more New Yorkers with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level will be able to apply for MetroCards at half price.
Funds for a humanitarian crisis
This agreement was reached after bitter negotiations and great differences between the Council and the municipal president, who had proposed cuts to compensate for the exorbitant expenses involved in attending to asylum seekers. As well as the new employment contracts with municipal employees.
“We reached an agreement for a fiscally responsible spending plan, but one that prioritizes protecting the most vulnerable. We are going to invest so that our communities grow in these difficult times”, highlighted the Mayor.
The City’s new spending and investment plan will include $4 billion in funds for affordable housing, at a time when it is facing an immigration crisis that has forced the city, by legal mandate, to finance room and board for thousands of applicants asylum seekers who began arriving in the Big Apple on buses from Texas in the spring of 2022.
This item of expenses means a 100% increase in capital financing for housing plans, in the midst of the cruelest housing, homeless and refugee crisis that the city has recorded since the Great Depression.
Millions for migration crisis
Adams confirmed that as of this Thursday, 81,000 people have been sheltered, of which 50,000 are in shelters and hotels financed by the municipality.
On what this humanitarian crisis specifically means in the structure of expenses of the Mayor’s Office, the municipal president specified that there is a forecast of $1.4 billion to provide shelter, food, clothing and other services to recently arrived immigrants in the coming months. , mostly from Latin American and Caribbean countries.
“It is the first budget in the history of our city that has been achieved with the consensus and leadership of a legislative majority of women of color. We simply think of the women of each neighborhood, as a formula to multiply the prosperity of our families”, reasoned Adrianne Adams, president of the City Council.
The leader of the municipal chamber made it clear that the cuts proposed in the original plan of the Mayor in initial education were avoided. In addition, financial resources were restored to the three public library systems and reductions to the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Vacancy Unit Preparation Program were reversed.
The Comptroller: “A myopic approach”
As soon as the deal became known, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander questioned some cuts he called “shortsighted,” such as restorative justice programs at Rikers Island Jail that he believes will undermine public safety goals. .
Based on the comptroller’s analysis, certain cuts were made and provisions were not made for vital services for New Yorkers despite the fact that extraordinary income is expected for fiscal year 2024.
Lander also criticized the failure to allocate more funds for legal assistance to asylum seekers.
“The municipal administration uses the high cost of providing refuge to immigrants as a justification for tightening its belt. But it did not provide significant funding for pro bono attorneys that would reduce the City’s long-term costs.”
The comptroller’s logic is that by helping speed up work permits and adjusting the immigration status of newcomers, they will be able to achieve financial independence more quickly.
In the next few days, this official will explain in detail what he considers the “gaps” of this agreement.
Ombudsman: “It is not enough”
For his part, in general terms, the Ombudsman, Jumaane Williams, appreciated that cuts to fundamental services such as public schools and other social programs have not been made, but he also questioned the fact that “austerity” has been preferred on many points, before the need to have more money available for investments aimed at the most vulnerable.
“Subway’s fair fare funding increase is in this budget, but it’s nowhere near what’s needed. Securing funding for affordable housing is a victory, but against the backdrop of veto legislation that would limit access to such housing for many New Yorkers,” Williams shared in a statement.
Three key points:
- $20 million in referral funds for the MetroCards financing program.
- $4 billion annually for affordable housing,
- $32 million to help renovate vacant NYCHA units