The “best budget in history” may not prepare for the sausage.
Mayor Eric Adams served an expenditure plan of the electoral year of $ 115 billion Thorsday that is full of sweets that please voters, but are still criticized by critics for squirrel relatively little for a rainy day.
Hizzer, who faces a re -election battle uphill, presented its duration of the 2026 executive budget as an event similar to the campaign of its Alma Mater Bayside high school in Queens, instead of the City Council, of which such ads have traditionally been made.
“This is not a budget that the favorites are the few. It is a budget for all of you,” Adams said, while it is flanked by the students. “In fact, it is not exaggerated to say that our executive budget of fiscal year 2026 is the best budget in history.”
The budget wasted $ 1.4 billion in programs and services that had faced cuts, such as libraries, early childhood education and the University of New York City.
It also launches a universal program after school and increases education for education by $ 376 million.
The expense plan is the largest that Adams has proposed since it assumed the position in 2022, and the proposal for last year executive budget reached $ 111.6 billion.
“Welcome to the election year!” Said veteran campaign strategist Hank Sheinkopf, added that the title mayors generally throw caution in the wind when a second mandate accumulates.
“An electoral year means living at the time. Tomorrow, next year is a long time,” Sheinkopf told the post. “It’s” spending what we can now. “It’s like a bank robbery.”
Critics quickly launched Adams apparently did not plan to plan the possibility of difficult economic times in the near future, from the tariffs of President Trump, a recently expected next expected and possible cuts of federal funds.
“Despite being on cash, the executive budget of fiscal year 2026 of Mayor Eric Adams does not address the dual threats of imminent federal budget cuts and a possible recession,” said Andrew Rein, president of the non -partisan prosecutor. Commission. Commission.
“Instead of wisely adding $ 1 billion in the next year’s general reserve to soften the first blows of federal cuts and $ 2 billion to the Rainy Day fund, the budget increases spending at an inasquible level.”
Rein said the city should have between $ 8 and $ 10 billion in reservations for possible choppy economic waters, a sum that the city’s budget director, Jacques Jiha, agreed that it is needed, if the big apple was in a stage of “Final Judgment Day.”
“We are not looking at the final judgment day, we are seeing a slowdown in the economy,” he said.
“We believe we have adequate reservations.”
The preliminary adams budget, published in January, was criticized by opponents, even in the progressive City Council, for needle cutting services.
But his administration maintained that these cuts were necessary due to the shooting costs of the immigration crisis, which Jiha said that more than $ 7 billion has cost the city.
The mayor had guided Albany legislators in February for $ 1.1 billion to deal with the migrant crisis, then holding that the city needed it in 12 weeks.
The City Council officials did not offer Nary Peep on the application since then, and the alleged deficit has apparently covered by savings, and Jiha said that only “money is fungible” as an explanation.
The budget announced that Thorsday is the first of Adams since the crisis decreased to a large extent, and includes these increases in spent expenses and cuts:
- $ 15.7 million for libraries
- $ 96 million restoring Cuny savings
- $ 298 million for school nurses
- A general increase of about $ 18 million to the parks budget
- $ 92 million in annual funds for 3-K
- $ 20 million for new universal programs after school
- A contribution of $ 3 billion for the MTAS Capital Plan
“Adams is using this budget to promote its re -election. He doesn’t want to have a lot of fight with the Council,” said Nicole Gelinas, a member of the Conservative Expert Group The Manhattan Institute.
“It is a preventive capitulation for the counter,” he added, noting that Adams was proposing $ 1.7 billion more in expenses compared to its preliminary budget.
“Adams is exploiting agency’s expenditure,” Gelinas said. “[He] He is wasting the last of his budget credibility. “
Not all programs and departments saw an increase in funds. The following budget cuts were included in the plan:
- $ 308 million for New York Police
- $ 111 million for FDNY
- $ 1.57 billion for the Social Services Department
- $ 1.19 billion for health + hospitals
- $ 840 million for the homeless service department
- $ 801 million for administration for children’s services
The conversations with the speaker of the Adrienne Adams city council, which is not related to Hizzer and that are running for the Democratic nomination to the Mayor’s Office, will continue until the deadline of June 30 to approve the budget.
The Adams plan sacrificed a lot of fodder of the candidates who expected to start it from Gracie Mansion, such as the Comptroller of the city Brad Lander, who said that the mayor was “not protecting the New Yorkers” by not putting more effective in the reserves.
The former Comptroller of the City and current mayor candidate, Scott Stringer, also criticized Adams for not preparing for a possible “extraordinary loss of funds for New York City.”
Adrienne Adams sacrificed less sadness and fatality: he thought he still warned against getting too comfortable.
“I think the budget at this time is good, but we are never too sure of what comes around the corner with this Trump administration,” he said.
Adams, who boasted to face then President Joe Biden for migrant funds, has not been so vocal about his growing Trump ally.
He said he has been in contact with the White House, as he acknowledged that the current world climate was creating “unknown waters.”
However, Adams’s main deputy hastened to take a positive turn to possible financial problems.
“We are better positioned to address with Washington those problems in the future,” said First Mayor Randy Mastro. “Even asking a question about a stage of the final judgment is being with those pessimistic and politicians opportunists who do not bet on New York, who say:” Heaven is falling. “
“The sky is not falling.”
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