NYC leaders reach deal on $116 billion city budget

Politico

10 hours ago

NEW YORK — New York City will boost funding for immigrant legal services by $41.9 million amid President Donald Trump's crackdown on noncitizens, as Mayor Eric Adams' administration and the City Council struck a final deal on a roughly $116 billion dollar budget days before the deadline.
The fiscal year 2026 budget also includes $12.5 million in funding to create a new mayor's office for pro bono legal services, which will focus on providing representation for unaccompanied minors in immigration hearings, Adams' office announced Friday evening. And $10 million will go to a pilot program for free child care for kids two-years-old and younger, expected to cover hundreds of low-income families. That pilot, first reported by Gothamist, comes as presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has made free universal child care a central tenet of his affordability-focused platform.
'There are no perfect budgets. But we have come a long way, and this one gets pretty close,' City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said at a press conference announcing the deal.
She and the mayor shook hands in the City Hall rotunda Friday afternoon as is tradition. While the two leaders have had an increasingly tense relationship, this year's budget process was relatively free of the drama and public fights that preceded previous deals.
'This has been, in my opinion, the easiest budget that we had to pass, because we knew what we expected from each other, and what we needed to deliver. And we were able to accomplish that,' Eric Adams said.
But it wasn't just four years of experience that played a role — the mayor is seeking reelection on an independent ballot line this year and formally launched his campaign Thursday with a rally on the steps of City Hall. He's running on what he's been able to deliver in his first term and promoted his executive budget last month as 'the best budget ever' with a campaign-style event at his high school alma mater in Queens.
Funding immigrant legal services could serve as a defense against a political vulnerability for Adams in the general election. The mayor has sought to increase cooperation with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement against noncitizens and moved to reopen a federal office on Rikers Island — a move that's been temporarily blocked following a legal challenge joined by the City Council.
Between legal services and the pilot for universal child care, City Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan believes that Mamdani's win influenced the mayor to align with the council, which governs to his left.
'There was definitely some movement after Tuesday,' he said. 'Things that the council had been fighting for many years suddenly became more important.'
Eric Adams got defensive when asked what changed his mind to add more funding to immigrant legal services.
'I'm the leading voice in the country of making sure people get justice,' he said. 'This is what I've done all my life. So there was no turning point.'
Even before the results were final, the mayor showed little appetite for another round of belt-tightening and budget cuts, which in prior years earned him protests, denouncements and even a lawsuit from the city's largest municipal union.
The mayor had defended those cuts as necessary to offset the massive, unexpected costs of housing and serving hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who had come to New York since the spring of 2022. But the number of migrants needing a high level of city services slowed to a trickle before Trump took office — a shift that took the city off its emergency footing and reduced spending in that area.
Adrienne Adams and Brannan have also been busy running for higher office over the last several months, pulling them away from City Hall during a time period often dominated by budget talk. Both lost their primaries Tuesday — Adrienne Adams for mayor and Brannan for comptroller — but Brannan said the fiscal situation simply made for less contentious negotiation.
'We were able to focus this time on expanding, instead of what we normally had to do, which is restoring core services,' he said. 'That's what we would have liked to do with the last three budgets.'
The City Council is expected to vote Monday to enact the final budget, just ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Despite Democrats' concerns about Trump's impact on the economy, city bean counters expect the city to bring in about $116 billion in revenue in the upcoming year — up nearly $1 billion from the executive budget. The S&P 500 hit a record high Friday, a boon for the city's investments, and Adams jokingly took credit. 'Dropped by the Stock Exchange this morning, just saying,'he posted on X. The city is legally required to have a balanced budget and will also keep $8.5 billion in reserve, consistent with last year's spending plan.
That wasn't enough for the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog that has consistently advocated for more conservative budgeting practices.
'The New York City fiscal year 2026 budget agreement is unaffordable, unprepared for federal cuts, and underinvests in the Rainy Day Fund despite strong current year revenues,' CBC President Andrew Reins said in a statement. 'Everyone knows that federal risks are real and substantial, yet they are shockingly ignored. Further, a typical recession would sap $11 billion of revenue over two years, which would swamp the City's reserves.'
Brannan defended the balance of spending and savings at the press conference. 'Today, we are proving that we can Trump-proof a budget while still investing in what matters most,' he said.
Eric Adams did not mention Trump in his remarks. He has maintained a cozy relationship with the president, whose administration pushed to drop the federal corruption charges brought against him earlier this year.
Aside from the investments in immigrant legal services and early childcare, the new revenue allowed city leaders to pepper in other additional expenditures.
The budget allocates $6.1 million to create a 'Division of Sustainable Delivery' under the Department of Transportation, focused on regulating e-bikes and mopeds — since reckless riders have become the subject of countless constituent complaints to elected officials.
The city will also add $900,000 to the New York City Emergency Management agency to fund 10 new employees meant to enhance the city's disaster preparedness.
The city has agreed to allocate $70 million to cover evaluations, services and classes for preschoolers with disabilities, fulfilling a request from over 80 organizations including the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New York.
And where advocates for libraries led aggressive lobbying campaigns to restore proposed cuts in the last two budget cycles, book lovers are getting a slight boost this year: the budget allocates $2 million to allow an additional ten library branches to stay open on Sundays.
Madina Touré contributed to this report.