The City Council on Monday announced it has identified more than $6 billion in additional funds that can be used to reverse Mayor Eric Adams’ series of deep budget cuts in its response to his Fiscal Year 2025 preliminary budget.
The budget plan’s release on April 1 kicks off the next phase of heated negotiations leading up to the June 30 deadline where the mayor and council must agree on a spending plan for the coming fiscal year.
In the council’s budget response, city lawmakers call for using $1.6 billion of the newly found money to restore Adams’ trims to vital city services like its 3-K program, public schools, three public library systems and Parks Department.
The plan also puts money toward council priorities such as housing and mental health care as well as $3 billion for the longer-term fiscal health of the city, including funding municipal reserves and leaving a $1 billion surplus.
The release of the council’s plan follows a month of hearings where city lawmakers examined the mayor’s $109 billion preliminary spending plan for the coming fiscal year.
The council says the additional available funds partially come from $3.3 billion more in projected tax revenue for this fiscal year and the next than what was forecasted by the mayor’s office, which the council already announced early last month. The rest is derived from $2.25 billion in potential underspending and $550 million of in-year reserves, according to the council.
Adams enacted 5% across-the-board spending cuts in November and January to stave off what it predicted to be an impending fiscal crisis driven by the influx of tens of over 180,000 migrants to the city over the past two years. City Hall said the cuts helped it close a projected $7 billion gap for the next fiscal year.
Adams has pulled back on some of his most unpopular cuts in his November Plan, to areas like the NYPD and FDNY, while sparing both of those agencies and the Department of Sanitation from any more reductions. He also canceled a third round that was planned for January.
Yet the council has consistently pushed for further restorations, especially to areas like the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, public schools and libraries. But the administration has so far stayed non-committal about reversing more cuts.
