For all of Bill de Blasio’s first term, New York City saw uninterrupted growth in tax revenue and continued economic expansion, enabling him to spend like no other mayor in the city’s history, growing the payroll and work force to an unprecedented level.
With the Trump administration threatening to cut federal aid, the coming year’s budget represents the first potential check to the mayor’s spending habits.
On Thursday, Mr. de Blasio released a preliminary budget that contained few new projects and offered little guidance on how the city would deal with possible cuts from Washington. In fact, the mayor called for an increase in spending to $88.7 billion in the next fiscal year, from $86 billion this year.
City officials acknowledged that at least $700 million was already at risk because of changes to federal payments for public hospitals and a dampening of the value of tax credits for affordable housing. The situation could worsen later this month when President Trump releases his budget.
Yet if the preliminary plan had been expected to provide hints as to how Mr. de Blasio would adjust the spending-as-investment approach to municipal governance that characterized his first term, there were few signs of such a shift.
Carol Kellermann of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission called it a “wait-and-see” budget.
“When the November modification was issued,” she said in an email, “we looked forward to more information on how the city would respond to possible losses of federal and/or state support in the January preliminary budget. Still waiting and not seeing.”
Notably, the plan does not include new money for the ailing subway system, a source of constant bickering between the mayor and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The governor has sought more than $400 million in additional city spending for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Mr. de Blasio has countered that about the same amount should come from the state, accusing Albany of diverting funds from the transportation authority over the years.
The absence of new transit funding could open a third front in the battle over who gets blamed for the failures of the subway system, and the cost of fixing it: Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, has vowed to put more money into the budget for the authority. Mr. Johnson has appeared interested in trying to move the mayor on the issue.
The 2019 budget — about $16 billion greater than when Mr. de Blasio took over City Hall in 2014 — included hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending, about $150 million more for the homeless as well as money for expanding early education for 3-year-olds and accelerating the rollout of body-worn cameras for police patrol officers.
All of that new spending is offset, the administration said, by a program to find savings in city agencies.
“This administration is focused on making New York the fairest big city in America,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement ahead of his presentation. “Every decision in this budget was weighed on whether it brought us closer to that goal.”
Some of the biggest spending increases could be found in the capital plan, according to a summary released by City Hall before his announcement. About $750 million more would go to the mayor’s housing plan, and some $82 million to buy new boilers in public housing buildings, where some residents have suffered from a lack of heat this winter. Another $72 million over this fiscal year and next would go to building four prekindergarten locations.
For some budget watchdogs, the uncertainty over federal cuts was a reason for the city to buttress its reserves and demonstrate restraint. But doing so could also provide a perverse incentive to leaders in Washington or Albany, who may see such measures as a sign that the city could afford to pay more.
“It’s a losing game to show money,” said Doug Turetsky of the city’s Independent Budget Office. “You have to be cautious,” he added. “Others” — meaning federal and state officials — “are looking for where they can make their budgets fall in place.”