Mayor Adams on Wednesday called the prospect of new city budget cuts a “hypothetical” that he doesn’t want to entertain yet, as his team seeks to change Gov. Hochul’s mind over her announcement that she won’t give the city more state migrant crisis funding this year.
“We don’t want to do hypotheticals,” he told reporters at City Hall when asked whether municipal budget cuts could be on the table this year given Hochul’s stance.
The prospect of new city service reductions emerged Tuesday, when Adams and his budget director, Jacques Jiha, revealed to state lawmakers during a hearing in Albany that the city has a $1.1 billion hole in its financial plan for the 2026 fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Jiha told lawmakers the funding gap exists because the 2026 fiscal year city spending proposal Adams unveiled last month was crafted with the assumption that this year’s state budget would include at least $1 billion in new migrant crisis funding for the city.
Hochul poured cold water on that assumption on Jan. 21, when she unveiled a state executive budget proposal that included no new migrant funding for the city. After Adams’ Tuesday testimony in Albany, a Hochul spokesman reaffirmed that stance, saying in statement: “Our position has not changed.”
After the mayor’s Wednesday remarks, Hochul’s spokesman sent back the same statement in response to a request for comment from the Daily News.
Jiha testified Tuesday that without new state assistance, Adams’ administration must “backfill” the $1.1 billion hole, either with spending reductions or revenue increases, as the city budget must by law be balanced. Adams has said repeatedly he’s not considering any city tax hikes.
Over the past two city budget cycles, Adams enacted deep cuts to nearly all agencies, resulting in libraries ending universal seven-day service and parks going without some cleaning shifts, among various other public-facing service disruptions. Adams implemented the cuts to offset heavy spending on the migrant crisis.
But after months of pushback from the City Council and other stakeholders, Adams ended up reversing most of the cuts when it his administration’s tax revenue estimates ended up higher than initially projected and his migrant crisis spending lower.
As the possibility of cuts looms over the city government bureaucracy again, the mayor’s office and Council leaders are expected this month to begin negotiations on the 2026 fiscal year city budget, which they need to reach a deal on by the end of June.
Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who chairs the Council’s Finance Committee and co-leads the budget negotiations, argued that just like in the past few cycles, the city has enough money to avert cuts.
“We don’t need to make any cuts. People have had it with this fake austerity circus. Enough!” he told The News. “Our most vulnerable New Yorkers are already living in fear of Trump’s funding cuts. We need to take care of each other right now and we have the funds we need to do that.”