NYC Gazette

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan, and members of the City Council on June 29, 2023 announced an agreement for an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible approximately $107 billion Adopted Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24). Despite facing strong headwinds, the budget makes upstream investments in working people and keeps New York safe and clean while contributing to the city’s robust savings program.

“The agreement we reached on June 29, 2023comes in the midst of a budget cycle dominated by great challenges and unexpected crises, but I am proud to say that we have successfully navigated through these many crosscurrents to arrive at a strong and fiscally responsible budget,” said Mayor Adams. “Our mission is not to simply save money — it is to set priorities, which include fair labor contracts for our unions, funding for education, the arts, and our libraries, and support for New Yorkers in the greatest need. I thank Speaker Adams, Council Finance Chair Brannan, and the entire Council for their partnership through this process.”

“The Council’s 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,” said City Council Speaker Adams. “We took seriously our task to negotiate the best possible outcomes and deliver results for the people of our city. Through difficult negotiations, the Council worked to bridge the distance between us and the administration, fighting to restore investments in essential services and funding many programs that we know our families, communities, and city need. Though we have come to a budget agreement on June 29, 2023, the Council knows we must continue to push forward in our year-long budgetary, legislative, and oversight efforts to secure the investments that New Yorkers deserve.”

The agreement on the $107 billion budget includes increased funding for youth jobs and apprenticeships and innovative educational programming for public school students. As part of the budget agreement, the city is expanding access to Fair Fares discounted MetroCards, providing more meals for seniors and low-income New Yorkers, and extending the hours for many vacant early childhood education seats, so working families can more easily enroll their children. Additionally, the budget takes advantage of higher-than-anticipated revenues to restore and provide additional funding for libraries and cultural institutions, which will both be funded at a higher level in FY24 than they were a year ago in the FY23 Adopted Budget, even before including City Council discretionary additions. Further, no New York City Department of Education (DOE) public school will have an initial budget lower than their initial budget last year, even if their student population has declined.

The Adopted Budget was crafted in the midst of an ongoing asylum seeker crisis that is currently projected to cost the city $4.35 billion over Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024 –– with $2.9 billion in estimated spending over FY24 alone. Though New York City continues the longstanding tradition of helping immigrants, the city has –– virtually on its own –– cared for more than 81,000 migrants since last spring, and has, thus far, received inadequate federal and state assistance. For this reason, at adoption, the city must add $465 million in FY24 to make up for less-than-expected federal asylum seeker aid.

The administration was able to balance the budget in adoption despite substantial challenges by controlling new agency spending and through a higher-than-anticipated increase in the city’s revenue of $2.1 billion in FY23, driven by continued strength in the local economy –– though tax revenue growth is still expected to slow in coming years. These additional resources were used to pay for agency needs, meet increased asylum seeker costs, and fund City Council discretionary spending and shared Adams administration/Council priorities.

Throughout this budget cycle, the administration has made tough choices that reflect an ongoing commitment to strong fiscal management, including by making government more efficient through budget savings and by maintaining robust reserves.

Since last June, the Adams administration has achieved gap-closing savings of more than $4.7 billion over Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024, which include less-than-anticipated agency spending of $72 million in FY23 and debt service saving of $137 million in FY23 and FY24 recognized in this plan. These savings were achieved without reducing funding to programs or services, laying off a single employee, or cutting school or classrooms budgets.

The FY24 Adopted Budget maintains a near-record $8.0 billion in reserves, which includes $1.2 billion in the General Reserve, $2.0 billion in the Rainy Day Fund, $4.58 billion in the Retiree Health Benefits Trust, and $250 million in the Capital Stabilization Reserve.

Investment Highlights of the FY24 Adopted Budget Include:

Keeping New York City Safe and Clean:

• Funding to expand Supervised Release services and pilot an “Intensive Case Management” model to provide stronger support for recidivists ($36.8 million).
• Continuing the increased frequency of litter basket pickups citywide ($22 million).
• Funding the New York City Department of Sanitation’s highway cleaning program, which includes a focus on cleaning highways, medians, and road shoulders citywide ($9.6 million).
• Increasing funding for the CleaNYC program, which cleans streets and sidewalks in targeted corridors ($3 million).
• Expanding neighborhood-based community navigators in Gun Violence Prevention Task Force districts ($1.9 million).
• Investing in technology to conduct a community sentiment analysis that will reach residents in an equitable and inclusive manner in order to evaluate the effectiveness of gun violence prevention interventions and deliver inclusive community-informed solutions to gun violence ($850,000).

Supporting Libraries and Cultural Institutions:

• Providing funding for Cultural Institutions Group and Cultural Development Fund recipients ($40 million).
• Adding funding for the public library systems ($36 million).

Lifting Youth and Working Families:

• Providing workforce enhancement to support wage increases for contracted human services providers ($40 million, growing to $90 million in FY25).
• Increasing annual funding for the Right to Counsel program ($36.6 million in FY24 and $30.6 million annually thereafter).
• Adding 5,000 slots to “Work, Learn & Grow” to provide Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) participants with school year employment ($22.5 million).
• Increasing baseline funding for Fair Fares to expand eligibility ($20 million, bringing baselined funding to $95 million).
• Funding 600 PromiseNYC child care slots for undocumented children and their families ($16 million).
• Converting almost 1,900 vacant, standard early childhood education seats into extended day seats, so they can be more effectively utilized by working families ($15 million).
• Helping City University of New York (CUNY) students overcome barriers and complete their degrees by adding funding for the Accelerate, Complete, Engage and Accelerated Study in Associate Programs ($14.1 million).
• Continuing support for Community Schools, a vital resource that supports the whole child in and out of the classroom, including providing school-based health services, and the child’s family with adult education classes and access to social services ($14 million).
• Providing free MetroCards for SYEP participants this summer ($11 million).
• Adding 400 slots to New York City Department of Youth and Community Development’s year-round youth workforce programs for out of school, out of work youth — bringing total capacity to 1,739 slots ($6.6 million).
• Continuing funding for DOE’s Immigrant Family Engagement program, which helps parents, who either do not speak English or are outside the nine standard translated languages, communicate with schools about their children’s education ($4 million).
• Providing New Yorkers experiencing food insecurity with access to an online marketplace for local grocery stores through the “Groceries to Go” program ($5.6 million).
• Increasing the reimbursement rate for home-delivered meals for seniors ($4.5 million).
• Funding for existing CUNY programs, like “College Now,” “CUNY Explorers,” and “Career Launch” ($5 million).
• Providing funding for K-12 arts education ($4 million).
• Helping to connect New Yorkers to apprenticeships, improve the city’s workforce development system, and establish a new community hiring program as authorized by recently passed state legislation ($2.7 million).
• Increasing funding for housing navigators to connect runaway and homeless youth to safe housing ($1.6 million).

Improving Health and Safety:

• Supporting swimming education in neighborhoods without access to public pools by funding 70 full- and part-time aquatic specialists, five recreation supervisors, 30 lifeguards, equipment, pool rentals, and access to DOE pools ($5.3 million).
• Continuing the investment in the Mental Health Continuum as part of the Adams administration’s Mental Health Agenda ($5 million).
• Investing in trauma recovery centers to support the recovery of underserved crime victims and stop cycles of violence ($2.4 million).

Original source can be found here.