NYC Gazette

Mayor Eric Adams: Good afternoon, really to the people of the city. We have a deal and we are proud to be here to talk about it. Before I talk about the adopted budget, I want to update everyone on the wildfire smoke condition that could impact air quality in our city. Air quality has been in the moderate and unhealthy level for sensitive groups categories on June 29, 2023, and we expect it could change over the next few days. New Yorkers should stay informed and be prepared to adjust their plans and to protect themselves, especially caretakers of children, older adults, and those with heart or breathing problems. If the air quality index goes over 150, all New Yorkers should take precaution. New Yorkers can continue to pick up high quality masks at NYPD precincts and FDNY firehouses, and now at the city's Neighborhood Health Action Centers. This way they can prepare themselves and use the necessary safety items as they get through this moment. It still amazes me the fire that's thousands of miles away is impacting our city in this manner. It just really, again, emphasizes the importance of dealing with our climate.

Our city agencies are monitoring the situation closely and we continue to keep New Yorkers informed. I want to thank Commissioner Zach Iscol for his updates and how the entire team is looking into this. AirNow.gov provides regular updates of air conditions and your community and notify NYC will provide the latest information from this city. And we also have a guest here on June 29, 2023, Marcia, right? Tamir, Hampton University student. Good to see you, Tamir. You're going to see how this press corps operate? You may want to change your profession after that. [Laughter.] Also want to take the time to state we're losing two members of our team is transitioning out. Keechant Sewell, as you know this is her last week with the administration. We want to thank her. And my comms director, Max, is transitioning as well. We appreciate their service to the city of New York. Now let's get to the good news of the adopted budget. 

Unlike the Yankees, it was not a perfect game, but we got to win for working class New Yorkers. And I'm happy to stand here on June 29, 2023 with the City Council colleagues to announce we have reached an adopted budget agreement of approximately $107 billion. And most importantly, invested in working people and the services they need while sustaining strong reserves that will allow our city to respond to future issues when they arise. I want to thank the speaker, Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan for their partnership. And most importantly, I want to thank just a person I have a great deal of respect during these difficult times, our budget director, Jacques Jiha and his OMB team. Thank you so much, Jacques. Brother you from Haiti, now running the largest budget in the city. Just want to say Sak Pase. And every New Yorker who reached out and let us know what was important to them. The agreement we reached on June 29, 2023comes in the midst of budget cycles  dominated by great challenges and unexpected crises. But I'm proud to say we have successfully navigated through these many cross currents to arrive at a strong and fiscally responsible budget that uplifts every day New Yorkers and their families.

Early in this administration, I made it clear that government must be more efficient and use our limited resources wisely. Our mission is not to simply save money, it is to set priorities. Priorities that include fair labor contracts for our unions and support for New Yorkers in the greatest need. This budget reflects that. It advances a Working People's Agenda, protects our most vulnerable and supports our young people, students, and older New Yorkers. Thanks to the hard work and good faith with our partners in the city council. We were able to come to an agreement on important issues across the board, balance our priorities with our resources. The money that is coming in must match the money that is going out. And at the same time, we maintain a near record level $8.8 billion in reserves that will safeguard our city's future. Thanks to prudent fiscal management, we have saved 209 million over fiscal year 2023 and 2024. That brings total savings in those years since last adoption to more than $4.7 billion.

And we achieved this without cutting services, laying off employees, or raising taxes. Fortunately, we also had higher than projected revenues thanks to strong post-pandemic economic recovery and robust job growth. This has allowed us to partner with the Council in restoring funding to important sectors like our libraries. For libraries alone, we partnered with the Council to put in $36 million. That along with labor costs, brings us to a higher level of funding and fiscal year 2024 than it was at adoption in 2023. We also invested in our public schools holding schools harmless with enrollment declines. And it didn't stop there. We made the investments in the programs and services that so many New Yorkers rely on. New Yorkers spoke, we listened. Parents who work near preschool and need preschool options that align with their work days. We are adding $15 million in funding to convert nearly 1,900 standard early childhood education seats into extended day seats starting this fall.

High school students need affordable college options in pursuit of their dreams, so we are making sure we are funding essential programs like College Now, CUNY Explorers and Career Launch. Public safety has been our top priority from the start of this administration, especially when it comes to ending gun violence in our communities. The budget provides much needed resources to support the violence, interrupters and community-based services who do this important work in Gun Violence Prevention Task Force District. It also provides supervised release and support services to give justice-involved New Yorkers a better chance of success and help keep our city safe. This is a city of compassion. We remain determined to help most vulnerable New Yorkers among us, especially those experiencing both homelessness and mental health issues. Our efforts are highly and are already helping people turn their lives around and this budget ensures we have the resources to continue to get New Yorkers in crises off the streets and into long-term supportive care.

Every day I hear from working people about the cost of transit in our city. I'm on the subway a lot and believe it or not, New Yorkers are extremely opinionated when they ride the subways. We are expanding our Fair Fares program by $20 million and spending $11 million to provide free MetroCards to Summer Youth Employment Program participants. The asylum seeker crisis is one of the crises that we are facing, and we continue to see this crisis unfold even as we manage it here in the city. In our budget, we provide additional funds to cope with this ongoing issue and provide help to all New Yorkers in need. All New Yorkers, it's crucial for us to ensure in this budget that we looked out for our older New Yorkers. They built the city and deserve the support they need to stay in the city they love and that they built. The budget provides increased funding for programs including home delivered meals program and funding of older adult center meals.

This adopted budget also invests in the people who keep our social services up and running, including our nonprofit contractors, childcare centers, and homeless outreach providers by delivering new funding that will raise their wages. And we have been focusing on the cleanliness of this city. You may not have heard it, but I would like to share with you, I hate rats, and cleaning streets are essential to our quality of life economic recovery. We are adding resources for the Department of Sanitation's Highway Cleaning program, which includes a focus on cleaning all highways, medians, and road shoulders citywide. One of the number one complaints I've heard from residents that are on our highways is how filthy they are. I want to take my hat off to Jessica Tisch, who's our commissioner of Department of Sanitation, for taking this on. And you are going to see a complete change in our highways.

We want to focus more on our young people and it's revealed in this budget all over the fire borough they deserve equitable access to swimming pools and instructions. We are adding additional funding for parks to increase access to pools and provide swimming lessons to more children than ever before. Increasing safety, equity and fund. Not all of these are big dollar investments, we're clear on that, but they are smart, strategic and will have a big impact on the lives of everyday New Yorkers. We have so much to be proud of in this adopted budget. It is on time, balanced and fiscally responsible. It strategically directs our resources to programs that will support everyday New Yorkers and it represents a balance of administration and council priorities. I want to thank everyone who worked tirelessly to get this done on behalf of New Yorkers, the city council member and the speaker and her team, and to do this while at the same time having to campaign and continue to move their message forward. But we got it done.

It's a real indicator of how we will continue to be committed and have healthy discourse, conversations and negotiations to represent the people of this city. This is a fair budget to make sure that we will have a city where people can thrive and raise healthy children and families. Again, I want to thank the speaker and our entire team and at this time I would like to bring her to the podium speaker, Adrienne Adams. Thank you.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams: That's my team back there. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Speaker Adams: Thank you so much. I am New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and I would definitely like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank a few people for their work throughout this budget process. I especially want to thank my general, our finance chair, Council Member Justin Brannan. Our great leadership team of Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, Majority Leader Keith Powers, Majority Whip Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Council Members Gale Brewer and Rafael Salamanca. I would also like to acknowledge our members of the BNT. They are our leadership team who I just mentioned, as well as Council Member Joe Borelli, Council Member Eric Dinowitz. Council Member Amanda Farías, Council Member Crystal Hudson, Council Member Rita Joseph, Council Member Linda Lee, Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, Council Member Carlina Rivera, Council Member Lynn Schulman, Council Member Marjorie Velázquez, and Council Member Julie Won. And in addition, I'd like to acknowledge my members who are present on June 29, 2023. Council Member Christopher Marte, Council Member Erik Bottcherm Council Member Julie Menin, Council Member Shaun Abreu, Council Member Kevin Riley, Council Member Pierina Sanchez, Council Member Oswald Feliz, Council Member Althea Stevens, Council Member Sandra Ung, Council Member Nantasha Williams, Council Member Darlene Mealy, Council Member Farah Louis, and Council Member Kamillah Hanks. Did I get everybody in? 

I have acknowledged my members and this has been a difficult process. The way that you all have remained focused and united on our share goals is what helped secure the achievements we're delivering to our constituents and to all New Yorkers. Thank you colleagues for your hard work and dedication throughout the budget process. I want to extend our deepest gratitude to the entire finance division staff led by my Deputy Chief of Staff for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Tanisha Edwards and the director of our Finance Division, the amazing Richard Lee.

None of the progress we made on this budget would've been possible without you and your long days and nights and days and nights of work. Last but not least, I want to thank the members of my senior staff, my super Chief of Staff, Jeremy John, Deputy Chief of Staff Faiza Ali and Deputy Chief of Staff of Communications Mandela Jones. Thank you all. The Council, our focus in this budget has been to protect the essential services that the people of this city rely on to be healthy, safe, and successful. As the first women majority Council in our city's history, we take very seriously our responsibility to shift the deeply ingrained dynamics of our city and society. Those that have traditionally left women behind, women and communities of color as an afterthought.

Women are the cornerstone of our society and the backbones of our communities, our families, and our entire city. When women are healthy and have access to opportunity, everyone thrives. The inequities that women and particularly women of color face throughout our lives that undermine us, our communities and the city are issues that must be addressed. Resolving these inequities was the focus of many of our budget priorities, specifically prioritizing a cost of living adjustment for human service workers, the majority of whom are underpaid women of color. It requires investing in an early childhood education system that supports working families and so many other programs that open pathways to equitable opportunity. We took a step forward with this budget to restore funding for certain programs and in some cases secure new investments for other goals, like repairing our 3K system with a $15 million intervention.

It was urged by our advocates and our providers. Let me be clear, we know the restored investments in this budget do not represent the completion of our work or this city's work. Critical programs in our communities require far more resources. There's more that must be done on every front of our budgets and policymaking. Our Council understands this and is fully committed to the important work ahead. Since the start of the budget process, the council has held a distinct vision for the budget. Even as we acknowledged approaching challenges, we understand that there are budget gaps in the out years that we must confront. Yet, how we approach these challenges matters to New Yorkers. Through negotiations, the Council worked to bridge the distance between us and the administration, fighting to restore investments in essential services and funding for many programs that our families, communities, and city need.

On June 29, 2023budget agreement is the result of our labored efforts toward equity. The council took seriously our task to negotiate the best possible outcomes and deliver results for the people of our city. At the same time, we shape this budget as responsible stewards of the city, making sure not to contribute to chaos and uncertainty that would ultimately hurt the very people we seek to help. These negotiations were not easy, and in fact they were uniquely challenging because of how much it focused on restoring cuts to so many important programs. We left nothing on the table because we know the immense need throughout the city and the lives at stake here. Every budget win was hard fought, and as a result there are priorities that we successfully advanced in this budget. The council negotiated with the administration to restore $36.2 million in funding that our public libraries would have lost.

The potential impact on services provided by these Community Resource Hubs would've been significant, affecting weekend and other library services that serve New Yorkers of all ages. I'm so proud to say that we've avoided this outcome thanks to New Yorkers raising their voices to protect this precious public resource. As a city that depends on the valuable labor of nonprofit workers, it is imperative that we fairly compensate workers with an overdue cost of living adjustment. Securing pay increases for these workers, the majority of whom are women and people of color, is a matter of gender, racial, and economic justice. We are proud to have secured a new baseline of $40 million on top of $60 million from last year for a total of $100 million in this year's budget for these workers. We have also secured an additional $50 million starting next fiscal year for a total of $150 million.

Yet we know this is still far from what is needed to truly provide these workers with the wages they deserve and we remain committed to achieving true parity for our essential workers, a lifeline for New Yorkers. CUNY, near and dear to my heart, is one of the most effective pathways to equitable economic opportunities for New Yorkers. As such, CUNY was a major funding priority for the council. The $32.4 million restored to this budget for our public institutions of higher education will help avoid the bulk of programmatic cuts they faced. We also secured $46 million to support legal service providers and their staff that help low income New Yorkers avoid evictions and other destabilizing outcomes with rising economic instability and evictions.

The city's right to counsel program and other legal services championed by the Council must be sustained. The frontline workers delivering these services need more resources and the permanent baseline $30 million is an important start toward increasing our support. We know more is needed to address these challenges and we remain committed to pursuing solutions that match the scale of the crisis. Early childhood education is key to long-term cognitive development and allows working parents the opportunity to advance their careers. Yet the prohibitive costs of childcare put this out of reach for so many New Yorkers. The Council worked hard to secure $16 million to support PromiseNYC, providing more childcare assistance.

To undocumented and low income families and base lined $15 million to 3K so that we can expand it to meet the extraordinary demand for early childhood education across the city. And because a holistic education requires support inside and outside of the classroom, we secured $14 million for community schools. Restoring cuts to programs that provide meals for our older adults was also an important part of this agreement. Our seniors' contributions helped build this city and they are the jewels of our communities. They should never, ever be an afterthought. This council has been a strategic leader in addressing the city's dire housing crisis. Record high levels of evictions and homelessness underscore the need to address this crisis with critical funding and smart policies. To that end, we were successful in moving $175 million to earlier years of the capital plan for housing at HPD. And this year, the city will reach the target of a $4 billion capital commitment for housing that this moment demands.

At a time when thousands of apartments sit vacant, we took action to reverse nearly $33 million in NYCHA cuts. The funding will go towards rehabilitating vacant apartments, speeding up the process to make them available for the thousands of individuals on NYCHA's waiting lists. Our government operates other critical programs that help make New York City accessible. One of these programs, as the mayor mentioned, Fair Fares helps low income New Yorkers access the public transit system, the lifeblood of our city, which is especially critical as fare hikes approach. In our agreement, we added $20 million more in base lined funds to Fair Fares.

We made significant progress toward many priorities for New Yorkers. We also acknowledge that there are unfulfilled goals that still remain for this council and the entire city. Priorities of ours remained unaddressed in this budget related to public safety, which we will continue to fight for as a Council. We cannot afford to withhold investments that are proven to help break cycles of violence and trauma. The council's priorities were informed by the many discussions with community leaders and advocates, public hearings and public demands. We will continue to approach our role this way by elevating New Yorkers voices in our government as their representatives. Looking ahead, we're very clear about unique challenges that we must confront. The city faces the loss of over $10 billion in one time federal Covid relief funding that has supported us. We also have significantly increased costs from settling municipal labor contracts, cost shifts of approximately $500 million from the state and significant state budget out year gaps that could significantly affect our city.

The council needs our city to take a different approach to proactively address these challenges. Our vision is one where we work together across our cities, state and federal governments to address the urgent needs of New Yorkers. The response cannot be to withdraw from our responsibilities. This is why we took a comprehensive approach on our recent trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with federal leaders. We must constructively work together to fulfill our obligations to New Yorkers, and our efforts must broaden at the state level as well. We also must do all we can at the city level to ensure that barriers for agencies to adequately staff up are removed. We can improve city government by supporting our agencies and its workers. The reality is we're heading into more challenging years. Navigating this calls for better governance and collaboration to address the challenges facing our city because our efforts are best spent on solutions.

While our Council's focus this year was to restore cuts to essential services, our city must shift away from this counterproductive budgeting approach and move forward through the lens of expanding upon what New Yorkers need, not what they can do without. Though we have come to a budget agreement on June 29, 2023, the council will continue to push forward in our year long budgetary legislative and oversight efforts to secure the investments that New Yorkers deserve. We cannot achieve anything without the people of this city. Our focus now and in the years to come must be to invest in what helps all New Yorkers succeed. Thank you very much.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much and I just want to personally thank you for going to Washington to fight behalf of the city. Whatever we need to do to get Brad to go, I'll even buy his ticket, but he needs to understand that that is his responsibility as well. I want to bring up the money man, the finance chair of the Council, Justin Brannan.

City Council Member Justin Brannan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to thank the speaker for her leadership through this process. I've been here for a little while, first as a staffer and for the past five years as an elected official. And I can honestly say we've never had a budget process that was this transparent and this inclusive of all members. So we thank you for your leadership. Mr. Mayor, this was a tough one, but we understood the task at hand. We got it done. Director Jiha, if you don't have a headache on June 29, 2023, then I haven't done my job. But I appreciate knowing where you stand even if sometimes we don't agree.

The council entered into budget negotiations this year with eyes wide open to the challenges on the horizon and at our doorstep. We've never doubted the durability of our city's economy, but we also recognize that resilience doesn't happen on its own. It requires thoughtful, targeted investments. When money is tight, decisions must be made. Our negotiations were no different from the often tough conversations working families have around their dining room table as they try to make ends meet for another month in the most expensive city in the world.

But even with an uncertain fiscal future and a migrant influx that everyone agrees New York City cannot and should not have to handle on its own, with a nearly $107 billion budget, the council knew this was still no reason for cuts with the skive, and said City Council fought for thoughtful surgical investments and focused our priorities where they mattered most. As the speaker said, the council fought and won critical investments and restorations for our community schools, our libraries, and our seniors. We reversed cuts to NYCHA. We secured funds for expanded and re-imagined 3K programs and we bolstered citywide mental health initiatives.

We fought to safeguard funding for our cultural institutions and we expanded fair fares so that less New Yorkers need to choose between a meal and a MetroCard. We secured funding for arts and music education in our public schools and more trash pickup to keep our streets clean. I say it often, and I'll say it again, a budget is more than just an itemized list of expenditures. It's a values document. You can tell me what you care about, but you prove it to me by showing me what you spend your money on, especially when times are tough and money is tight.

It all comes down to priorities. And from the start of these negotiations, the council was laser focused on protecting what New Yorkers need to recover, succeed, be healthy and safe. New Yorkers don't run and hide. We stand and fight. And the city's best days are ahead of us and I would never bet against New York City. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Who’d you start with, Dana? Yes.

Question: Why did you decide to sustain $17 million in cuts to reentry programming, educational programming on Rikers? Why is that a good place to cut given growth and the population there?

Mayor Adams: When I did an analysis of the programs, having a program must produce a product. And that is something that's dear to my heart and I want to look at, if we have you as a consultant, if we have you as someone that's delivering services through the city, then what you are delivering must match the course.

And so I told the commissioner to look at the course of the programs and can we do it internally? Can we have the staff to do it internally? The commissioner said, "Yes, we can do it internally. We can provide those services, the counseling services, the transitional services, all of those services we could do internally."

I just think it's the wrong thing to do to have city employees and then have a whole host of consultants. I think it's an insult to city employees and it's not allowing our city employees to grow and expand. They have the best knowledge of how to run these agencies and I want to give them the power to do so, and that's why the commissioner made the decision and I support his decision.

Question: My question is for the Council speaker. You mentioned that this was a difficult process. Can you sort of walk us through what made it so difficult and were there particular issues or programs that it seemed like it was really difficult to come to an agreement on?

Speaker Adams: Well, we knew from the beginning when we were dealing with the preliminary executive budget that we were really starting at ground zero. Literally at ground zero. So the budget negotiation team — and I neglected to mention Council Member Shekar Krishnan as a part of the BNT as well — the budget negotiating team had to come together, the finance team as well, and we had to take a very, very serious look at those, at the cuts. And we had to sum up priorities, the most critical priorities. There were many and some did get left out. The money is not infinite, it is finite and we understand that. So there were a number of things, again, what you see that were most hard fought are the wins that you see as a result.

Mayor Adams: I just want to also add to that. I don't recall a budget cycle that's not challenging. If it's not challenging, then we're not doing our job and the Council's not doing their job. That's the beauty of democracy. Having these council members all represent different walks, places in the city, different philosophies, different concepts, different priorities. But I think the speaker said it right. There's a finite amount of money and we have to figure out, the money comes in, on how much money's going out. This is what we ask everyday New Yorkers. Everyday New Yorkers must balance the finances of their homes. We need to do that in the city. So if someone says that there's a uniqueness attached to the difficulties of this budget, tell me what year, point to me what year there was not a difficult issue in the budget, even when there was a surplus.

We had to deal with asylum seekers. We have to deal with the fiscal cliff that's getting ready to hit us next year. We have to deal with the lost, in the amount of money that's going to come into our school equation. And so… This darn fly, man. We've got to deal with the fly. Budget directors of the past flying around. So it is difficult. It is difficult. And so let's not make believe that this speaker was fighting on behalf of her members, and we had to sit down and decide… If I kill the fly, those animal rights groups is going to say I did something wrong. 

So yes, it was difficult. We were dealing with the challenges of what we had in front of us, and I commend the fact that they did it while campaigning. Let's not, that's going to be lost into the narrative. While they were out in their districts explaining, campaigning, we were able to say, "Let's put politics to the side and let's sit down and do both at the same time."

Question: For both of you really, we know that there's been staffing shortages and that that's affecting some service delivery agencies. I think the speaker mentioned some kind of agreement. Is that part of the budget? Anything to help staff up city agencies?

Mayor Adams: It was a combination. I was in South Jamaica, Queens, my old stomping ground with the speaker when we did something called the Hiring Hall. The speaker acknowledged, we acknowledged that, listen, you can't have 12,000 vacant positions in the city, yet see high unemployment rates. And so we partnered with several Council members that are here, that we held 15 Hiring Halls throughout the city where the Council members and state lawmakers found spaces for us to utilize, navigated the process.

We hit train stations, hand out flyers, we put it in our churches, and one of the most successful ones we had was at York College that the speaker assisted us in doing so. We have to get these everyday New Yorkers to come in and provide the services so we can be the city that we all expect it to be. We want to continue to hire up and we're going to continue to get that information out throughout the entire city. Speaker, you want to add anything?

Speaker Adams: Well, that's pretty much the answer, mayor. And we need to do more of those Hiring Halls. That is the one thing that we absolutely agree with, hands down. The Hiring Halls have been tremendously successful and we need to do more of them. We need for folks to come in and realize that these are great jobs that we're offering. Look at all these employees. These are great jobs and we really, really hope that more New Yorkers will take advantage of these hiring halls and of these great opportunities to come.

Question: Is there anything [inaudible]?

Speaker Adams: Yeah, yeah. This wasn't a negotiable issue for the budget. This is something that we're going to continue to encourage and we're going to continue to facilitate.

Question: Mr. Mayor, you've talked extensively about the fact that you had to spend $4.3 billion to deal with the asylum crisis. I wonder what budget, what price are New Yorkers paying for the fact that you had to take $4.3 billion out of the budget to pay for the migrant crisis and what would they have received in this budget if you didn't have to spend that money?

Mayor Adams: I hate to be hypothetical, but I think we did $1 billion, what was it, $1 billion, four on asylum seekers this year? $1 billion, four. Those are real numbers and we had $1 billion, four less for the speaker and I to be able to spread out throughout our city. And I just think it's unfair that $1.4 billion that could have gone into some of the priorities that we all share, and we are looking at an additional dollar amount. This is a $4.3, $4.4, it may even be higher that we are experiencing.

This comes out of New Yorkers. And we are not getting the help that we deserve, and this is really wrong for asylum seekers. They only ask one thing, "Let us work." They say, "We want to work. We want to pay into your tax base. We don't want your free food, we don't want your free clothing, we don't want you washing our clothing. We want to work." And so, there are many things we could have done. I can't be hypothetical, but I'm sure there are many things we could have poured our money into if we had that $1.4 billion and the money we going to lose in the out years… [Crosstalk.] Hold on, this is Marcia.

Question: Given the fact that lithium battery fires are costing the city an awful lot of money, if there was ever any consideration to doing a massive battery buyback program, I know there are 65,000 of these bad batteries out there. If there was any consideration to funding a program like this would've actually saved the city millions of dollars in loss and life.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, we are not leaving any stone unturned, and I have to take my hat off to Commissioner Kavanagh. She really saw this issue, jumped on it right away, really putting a multi-pronged attack, education, enforcement. We decreased the amount of time that someone can go in to investigate.We saw a couple of cases already, and I have been putting out in the universe of what new technology's out there. I had a meeting yesterday. We're getting ready to test a new technology that can extinguish these fires faster. And we would love to see whatever is possible to encourage the turnaround. Because listen, when you talk about a thousand dollars to buy a battery, the range is high. To put that on low wage employees is hard. And we need to make sure there's no incentive to find a cheaper way or cheaper battery, and we're willing to look at whatever way possible to get that done.

Question: My question is for the speaker. Can you confirm that the budget includes $29 million in cuts to homeless service providers? And I wonder, just watching you and the council members up here, are you feeling emotionally disappointed or dealing more than normally with the difficulty of sustaining some of these cuts in this budget this year?

Speaker Adams: We can talk for hours about the things that were not accomplished in this budget, not just what you just named, but there are several things that we were not able to accomplish in this budget.And yeah, we're passing a budget, it's a necessary budget, and we got some fantastic wins for the people of the city, but some were left out. So we don't want to skirt around that issue. We don't want to hide that issue. Some were left out. So the answer is yes, the budget's passing right now, but this is a bittersweet moment for this Council.

Mayor Adams: I'm going to touch that too. Listen, you stated that is this an emotional draining, I don't know the term that you used. For the speaker. It's emotionally draining for us. Don't ever think that those who have gone through a lot are not feeling the pains of people who are going through a lot right now. It hurts us to know that we lost $1 billion, four that we could have put in some of these programs that we're talking about. So when I talk about how do we deal with education, I think of my personal journey. When I think about how do we deal with homelessness, I think of my personal journey. When I think about public safety, I think of my personal journey. So we are not detached. These are not professional bureaucrats. These are people every day, all day are living through the trauma of what people are experiencing. So the speaker understand what all of these members behind us are talking about. And I think sometimes we miss the fact of the life of a public servant.

Don't even look at the positions they hold. Go listen to their personal stories. They didn't come into politics to go through the motion. They came into politics to fix the wrongs. So we're all emotionally drained. This is painful to all of us to watch what our city is going through. None of us take joy of walking down the street and seeing someone living on the street. No one takes joy of going on Rikers Island and seeing people who have been denied by the city. By the way, I've been on Rikers Island with inmates and correction officer more than any mayor in the history of this city. So we don't take joy in any of this, but we have a responsibility. We are in charge of running the most important city in America. And it is a painful moment. It takes discipline. It takes strategies. It takes identifying how do we take the resources coming in and make sure they match what's going out? If not, then the speaker and I would be irresponsible in our roles of leading this city.

Question: Speaker, does the city have an off ramp when New York City will stop paying for migrants to come here? Is it an indefinite cost? Will it go on forever?

Mayor Adams: We're going to follow the law. We're going to make sure that we look at every opportunity to stop this flow. But I have not read it, but I'm pretty sure one of you have the story already written of how you want to criticize me when we take a shift. The same people that are talking about, "When are you going to stop paying?" Will critique every method we did to successfully ensure that no one is sleeping on the streets. People have yet to even acknowledge that.

I've been to El Paso. I've witnessed people sleeping in the airport, sleeping on the streets. We have navigated over 70,000 people in our city. No child or family are sleeping on the streets of the City of New York. So we're going to continue to use all legal means if it means a decompression strategy throughout the state, if it means convincing Brad Lander to go to Washington and help us if it means making sure that we build up HERRCs, whatever we have to do, we are going to fix this problem to the best of our abilities. And we're going to use whatever court and legal challenges we could do to say that New Yorkers should not be going through this. But we are not going to ever say we're not going to provide some level of care to people who come to this city.

Question: Can the speaker address that?

Speaker Adams: I don't want to be redundant, but the mayor pretty much summed it up. As we've been on the forefront of this issue, we have witnessed on several occasions, migrants getting off those buses. It is a situation that New York is in because we've always welcomed everyone with open arms. So we're going to continue to work with our federal partners who actually have the power to do something about this. New York has taken on the burden of a nation and it is tremendously unfair to the people of the City of New York, yet we still have our arms open.

Question: If the feds won't step up, is there an off ramp though?

Mayor Adams: The feds have to step up.

Speaker Adams: They have to step up. I don't think that there's any… There are no if, ands or buts about it. They have to.

Mayor Adams: I want to make sure I get this number right because I don't want anybody writing this story saying I lied about the numbers. Okay. It's actually 81,000. So if I say 7,000, it's 81,000.

Bernadette. How you doing, Bernadette?

Question: Good. So I've got a question for Jacques actually. I'm wondering how much have your budget gaps grown, if at all? Do you think the budget has done enough to either reduce those or keep those under control? And then also what's going on with the over $2 billion in revenues? Where is that going? Because your overall spend number only went up by a little bit.

Jacques Jiha, Director, Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget: Yes. The out years have gone by about close an average of $1 billion ranging from $5 billion in fiscal year '25 to about $7.9, I believe, in fiscal year '27.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Jiha: Yeah. About, yes. What was the second question?

Question: Well, I'm wondering, do you think that you guys did enough to sustain and control those fiscal cliffs and then also the… Yeah, go ahead.

Jiha: We'll continue to manage the fiscal cliffs. As you can imagine, it's a very difficult situation. As you may have mentioned that we have to provide for about $4.3 billion in expenses to cover the asylum seekers. That is on the low end of the estimate because we have indication that it could be even higher. Okay. We are watching the trend to see whether or not it'll be sustained over time, but we continue to manage and as we manage on a yearly basis, we're taking decision steps to try to identify savings, identify ways to generate additional resources so we could meet the challenge in the out years.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Jiha: The reserves are more the same, about $8 billion for fiscal year '24.

Question: I have a question for the mayor and also the speaker. Mr. Mayor, you've said that for school funding that the initial funding for schools will be the same, will not be lower than last year, regardless of a decline in school enrollment. My question though is could schools anticipate cuts further down the line during the year?

Mayor Adams: Thanks so much, Camille. It's emotional intelligence. Seriously. It is never our desire to surprise, I think we have the chancellor here, to do any sort of midyear cuts. We want to stabilize our educational system. We've known that they've gone through enough. What you see in the budget is what we have right now. There is no plans to do any surprise announcements. Once we sign this agreement and it's signed by the Council, it is what the law of the land is.

Question: But you can't guarantee that there might be midyear cuts for schools?

Mayor Adams: There is no desire to do so. There's no guarantees in life. There's no desires to do so. That is the answer to your question. [Crosstalk.] No, no. You don’t get two. Marcia gets two. You got your one. Go to the next one.

Question: I have one question for both of you. Mr. Mayor, I was wondering what changed your mind about some of the cuts that have been restored? And for the speaker, would you have rather spent your energy on new initiatives rather than working to restore [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that those of you that have been following this for a while, this is what happens. We do a proposed budget. The Council members, the beauty of the diversity of this Council body, they come down, they sit down with their leader and they state that these are the things that are important to us. Then we get to the table and have a conversation. There's nothing that was restored that we have a problem with. We wish we could restore everything. So this is the process. They come in, they put skin in the game. They say, "Listen, we know we believe this, or let's do some funding on our end." This is a good, healthy, democratic process that has been done as long as I can remember. So there was nothing surprising about once we do our proposed budget. This is the same thing that's done in Albany. This is the same thing that's done in Washington. This is the American process. It's just that in New York City we do it better than everybody else.

Speaker Adams: Thanks for the question, Joe. Very simply, yes, there are some things that we would definitely have liked to have done differently had things been different. Yes.

Question: As part of the DOE's pay, it looked like about $105 million were saved on fringe benefits. But some advocates have claimed that money had actually been repurposed and used on things like charter school costs and special education services and realizing the savings would have to cut elsewhere. Can you comment on that?

Jiha: The only thing I can tell you is what we did with DOE is we had a very high estimate in term of fringe benefits. So we reduced the fringe benefits about 5 percent, I believe, which is more than we're currently spending. Okay. So we still have room between what we cut and what the actual spending is. So we just basically try to bring... We estimate the fringe benefit in line with the actual spending. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Jiha: Yes.

Question: So for the speaker, you said that the budget process has been counterproductive. Can you elaborate on what that means a bit and what you would like to see?

Speaker Adams: No, I never said that. Do you want to rephrase your question for me?

Question: You said counterproductive budgeting approach, process. I don't remember the exact words.

Speaker Adams: No, those words did not come out of my mouth. Counterproductive?

Question: I'm not going to replay the report right now.

Question: Counterproductive budget approach.

Speaker Adams: Counterproductive budget approach?

Question: Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

Speaker Adams: The initial focus coming off of the executive budget that was presented to the City Council preliminarily, that was what I was speaking of. If that term was pulled from there, that was what I was speaking of. This is primarily a restorative budget. We would have preferred for it not to have been a restorative budget. So if the word counterproductive was used, it was used in that frame and around that framework.

Question: What would you like to see in future years?

Speaker Adams: I'd like to see more money in the future year.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: [Inaudible]. Do you think Brad Lander would be more successful down in Washington than you or the Council members?

Mayor Adams: No, just adding all of our voices to an issue that is really at the top three. If we would say top three issues in the city, that is one of them. The speaker was clear with her delegation of going down to Washington, fighting on our behalf. Jumaane went down, fought on our behalf. I think Brad should go down and fight on our behalf as well. Adding all of our voices to a serious issue, then Washington won't say, "Well Eric, you're the only one that's saying that's a serious problem." He has an obligation to go and not just do a tweet. Go hit the streets in Washington, D.C. Thank you very much.

Original source can be found here.