Libraries, education, policing, sanitation: How should New York City spend almost $112 billion in residents’ tax dollars?
That’s the question facing the City Council, which on Monday will begin a series of hearings on Mayor Eric Adams’ spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year that starts on July 1.
The budget hearings are set to take place less than two weeks after Adams unveiled his latest executive budget proposal. The $112 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2025 would partially reverse unpopular cuts to policing and early childhood education programs but would reduce funding for other critical city services, such as parks and libraries. Adams and the Council will negotiate on the budget over the next couple of months, and whatever deal they strike could come with changes.
The anticipated negotiations come at a moment of stark tension between councilmembers and the mayor on a number of fronts.
On Friday, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced a formal request for an independent investigation into the NYPD’s social media activity after top police officials used their accounts to attack lawmakers, journalists and others who have criticized the department, including over its handling of recent campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. On the same day, the mayor’s chief legal counsel demanded a Council ethics inquiry into a councilmember who she said had harassed administration officials with aggressive questioning at a hearing last week.
The legislative and executive branches are also quarreling over the administration’s new policy requiring elected officials to fill out a lengthy online form to request meetings and other engagements with agency leaders. And some councilmembers are preemptively opposing Mayor Adams’ potential nomination of a controversial attorney as the city’s corporation counsel and have cited record defending conservative causes, including in local affairs.
The Council’s and Adams’ conflicting views on how much money the city has to spend are expected to be a key part of the budget hearings. In addition to denouncing some of the cuts proposed by Adams, lawmakers have argued that higher-than-predicted tax revenues and the city’s reserves make the funding reductions unnecessary.
Councilmember Justin Brannan, who chairs the influential finance committee, said on Sunday that a recent analysis by the Council found more than $1 billion available for additional spending. “[T]hat can and should be used to dunk on all of the remaining cuts, boost our reserves and then some!” he said in a post on X.
Various committees are scheduled to hold the hearings through May 22 and will examine the budgets the mayor’s team has put forward for different city agencies. The general welfare committee will kick off the first hearing, on the city’s department of social services and human resources administration, at 9:30 a.m. on Monday.
Members of the public are welcome to testify at the proceedings in person at City Hall, in writing or via Zoom and can sign up on the Council’s website. City agency leaders are also expected to testify.
The full schedule of budget hearings can be found on the Council’s calendar.