City leaders and parks advocates say greenways, playgrounds and other outdoor spaces will soon be plagued with overflowing trash, dirty bathrooms and overgrown landscapes thanks to Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget cuts.
The mayor is calling to slash nearly $55 million from the parks department, which would bring the agency’s total annual allotment to roughly $583 million. He laid out the cuts as part of his most recent $112 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
That means agency funding will fall well short of Adams’ campaign promise to dedicate 1% of the city’s total budget to its parks and playgrounds.
The cuts could result in the elimination of up to 700 jobs related to the upkeep and maintenance of the city’s park system, according to New Yorkers for Parks. The organization’s executive director, Adam Ganser, called the cuts “a slap in the face” to New Yorkers — particularly with warmer months around the corner.
“It doesn’t make any sense from a political standpoint,” he said. “Every New Yorker relies on the city’s parks and to continually cut them so that people across the city are seeing more trash in parks, feeling less safe in their city parks? It goes against logic.”
Adams’ mayoral campaign in 2021 promised to dedicate 1% of the city’s total budget to its public parks followed a policy path trod by previous administrations. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg led an expansion program that put more than three-quarters of residents within walking distance of a park or playground by the end of his term. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio used his term to funnel hundreds of millions into revamping parks in low-income neighborhoods.
But more than halfway through his first term, parks funding represents only at about half of a percent of the total city budget, well short of Adams’ commitment.
Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the Council Committee on Parks and Recreation, said the latest cuts will eliminate a “second shift program” that ensures there are cleaners working the afternoon and evening at the city’s most heavily used parks. The proposed cuts will also shutter a learn-to-swim program that provides lessons to children in the city, advocates say.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on the record, referring Gothamist to remarks Adams made in February that he would continue to augment the parks budget but that it would not occur overnight.
Krishnan said NYC Parks received its largest budget in history — which topped more than $600 million – in the fiscal year that ended in June 2023. But funding has since regressed, including cuts at the end of last year that eliminated other positions and programs.
And New York falls behind other cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., that have already dedicated more than 1% of their budgets on parks. Requiring the same here, Krishnan said, “is nothing radical.”
“It is the money and resources that our parks need to keep them clean, to support our workers and make sure that every New Yorker can step outside their front door and have access to a well maintained and high quality park,” he said. “That’s not a luxury, that is not a privilege, that is a right.”
The $583 million allocation for Parks is roughly a million dollars less than the $584 million that Adams proposed in his preliminary spending plan in January. In contrast, other agencies, including schools, police, fire and sanitation, had some of their funding partially restored in the Mayor’s most recent proposal.
“It’s basically using our city’s Parks as a bargaining chip in a fight that is going to have a direct impact on so many New Yorkers,” Ganser said. “And for what? If we’re going to end up back to where we started? That was a great use of everybody’s time.’”