Mayor Eric Adams unveiled New York City’s budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year on Wednesday, April 24th. The proposal totals $111.6 billion, a $4 billion increase from the current budget.
The new financial plan restores $515 million to school funding and reinstates two NYPD training classes to enhance street patrols.
Adams praised the brighter prospects and the partial reinstatement of funding as indicators of his administration’s effective fiscal management.
The mayor said, “As soon as we saw the hurdles ahead, we responded swiftly, strategically, with a healthy dose of caution.”
He continued, “We made smart choices, trimmed agency and asylum seeker budgets, and made conservative revenue forecasts. This, combined with better than expected revenues and a booming economy, resulted in a balanced budget.”
Following last fall’s announcement that the city would initiate three rounds of 5% cuts across municipal agencies to address expanding budget deficits primarily attributed to spending on asylum-seeker services, City Hall has progressively reversed some of these reductions.
With the release of higher tax revenue projections and plans to reduce spending on the approximately 190,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022, specific agency cuts outlined in previous plans have been rescinded, and the proposed 5% cut across agencies in the current budget plan has been entirely scrapped.
Adams announced that the budget reflects a $2.2 billion rise from the preliminary budget introduced in January and allocates ample resources to manage the city’s ongoing migrant crisis.
“The real challenge we had coming into office in 2022 was [the] sunsetting of programs, and also we had to look at the realization that all of our union contracts were outstanding,” Mayor Adams explained during a press conference.
He added, “We got the asylum seekers, so that created a real crisis. If we didn’t start early with our [Programs to Eliminate the Gap] we would have had a challenging time.”
The NYPD budget, standing at $6.5 billion, aligns with the current fiscal plan, yet only half of the canceled academy classes have received full funding, with the addition of 1,200 recruits anticipated.
The budget allocates $92 million for the 3-K program and $74 million for mental health services within schools.
It also includes the restoration of funding for cultural institutions.
The budget supports initiatives such as social workers and psychologists offering mental health support in schools. It also allocates funds for arts programming and literacy initiatives, including dyslexia programs and academic assessments for English language arts and math.
Despite these investments, some proposed cuts from last fall remain, initiated in response to anticipated migrant crisis costs.
These included a planned 5% budget reduction across city agencies, although the mayor noted these preemptive cuts ultimately saved the city $7.2 billion.
City Comptroller Brad Lander responded positively to the budget’s focus on foundational educational programs.
Lander stated, “With the additional projected revenue of $2.3 billion, New York City will be able to maintain funding for stimulus-funded foundational education programs—like 3K and Pre-K, Summer Rising, community schools, and shelter-based community coordinators.”
However, not all reactions were as favorable. City Council leaders, including Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan, expressed disappointment over the exclusion of crucial support for mental health services and library funding.
“We are disappointed that critical support for key mental health services, programs to reduce recidivism, and libraries that our city desperately need are not included in the executive budget,” they said in a joint statement.
The leaders of the New York, Brooklyn, and Queens public library systems also expressed disappointment that the budget had “failed to reverse devastating cuts proposed for public libraries in January.”
The leaders, in a statement, said, “We’ve already lost seven-day service citywide, and are looking at most branches being open for only five days a week should these cuts go through,”
The City Council is advocating for an additional $1.63 billion to be earmarked for essential services and $3 billion to safeguard against fiscal risks and under-budgeted costs, also calling for a $500 million “rainy day fund” to ensure the preservation of a $1 billion budget surplus.
