Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a record-breaking $114.5 billion spending plan Thursday, serving up his first proposed city budget without painful spending cuts, in an election year.
The spending plan for the 2026 fiscal year is roughly $2 billion more than New York City’s last enacted budget, with investments in mental health, parks and quality-of-life programs.
“Because we set the table for success, we were able to ensure the continuity of critical programs as well as make strategic new investments in public safety, affordability and quality of life that benefit working class New Yorkers,” the mayor said.
Adams, as he outlined the proposal, contended his administration’s action during the migrant crisis saved $2.4 billion from last year.
“We’ve successfully reduced the number of asylum seekers in our care from a high of 69,000 in January 2024 to under 50,000 today,” he said.
But even as Adams touted the drop in migrants under the city’s care, his proposed budget included $554 million in new homeless shelter funding to account for a surge of unhoused non-asylum seekers flocking to New York City from all over the US.
It comes after Adams announced a $650 million, 5-year plan to tackle mental health among homeless New Yorkers, $136 million of which was included in his FY2026 budget proposal.
Other new funding included $325 million for rental assistance vouchers, $63 million for working-class tax relief and $5.5 million for free swim lessons.
But the proposal also didn’t restore many deep cuts to popular city services such as early childhood education that Adams made in past budgets, which he had blamed on the astronomical cost — $6.9 billion since 2022 — of caring for nearly 230,000 migrants.
Adams and City Hall officials were cagey on whether past cuts would be restored in the proposed budget.
When asked if the city’s parks had their funding fully restored, Budget Director Jacques Jiha offered an answer more philosophical than one rooted in dollars and cents.
“From our perspective, yes,” he said.
“What does that mean?” a Post reporter yelled, to no response.
Jiha later told reporters that even though certain programs at the Parks and other departments that were cut previously haven’t been funded, the agencies’ budget are near or at prior levels but with added initiatives pushed by the mayor.
Adams’ budget experts forecast tax revenue to come in a $80 billion, on par with projections from the City Council.
Council members — who will hash out the final budget with City Hall in the coming months — quickly criticized Adams’ proposed plan for falling short on funding for early childhood education, which remain at risk of being rolled back as early as July.
“Vital education programs that help our students and were funded in last year’s budget are not supported in the mayor’s new proposal,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, no relation to the mayor.
Hizzoner and lawmakers made significant investments in the 2025 fiscal year budget to continue essential education programs, staff, and services that had been at risk of ending due to expiring temporary federal stimulus dollars and city funds.
While the city provided long-term funding for many of these programs, others were continued for only one year — meaning the funding will expire at the end of June unless they’re in the next budget.
Justin Brannan, the council’s finance chair, was surprised by the mayor’s preliminary budget’s silence over funding for parks, CUNY and certain mental health programs — was particularly baffled over early childhood education.
“Seeing that this preliminary budget is silent on investing in 3K is just crazy,” he said. “I don’t know if they forgot to put it in the document, but how do you not invest in 3K? It’s a proven program.”
The budget is roughly $200 million short on 3K and pre-K funding, which was paid for using COVID stimulus that dried up last year. They haven’t yet found the $112 million needed to fund 3K next year.
“Just because its not funded now, doesn’t mean it’s not going to be funded,” Jiha said.
Adams’ budget proposal kicks off months of likely negotiations with the City Council before a June 30 deadline for adoption — just days after a sure-to-be contentious mayoral primary.
The mayor has seen his approval crater even before his historic federal indictment — a misfortune that a slew of Democratic challengers hope to capitalize on in the coming primary.
One rival, city Comptroller Brad Lander, blasted Adams’ budget as relying on “gimmicks” to paper over past unnecessary cuts.
“Perhaps the biggest gimmick here is that $2.4 billion of the $2.7 billion that the Mayor is claiming in savings is merely correcting for his past overbudgeting of asylum seeker costs, which the Independent Budget Office has highlighted,” he said in a statement.
“It’s really stretching the budget dance to scapegoat immigrants for the city’s problems, overbudget expenditures on asylum seekers, needlessly threaten to make cuts to libraries and parks, and then claim it as savings.”
