New York City continues to face severe challenges, particularly in the realm of budgetary matters. That challenge comes alongside other issues, such as that as it remains a sanctuary city and faces a massive inflow of illegal immigrants, and that its generally soft-on-crime policies have caused crime problems in the city. Paired with wealthy residents fleeing the high taxes and high crime for greener pastures in Florida, those issues have placed a severe budgetary strain on the Rotten Apple.
In fact, according to a report from the Citizens Budget Commission, Mayor Adams’ budget won’t have anywhere near enough cash to keep the city’s current services going. That cash crunch, the report warned, will come even if other major gaps, altogether many billions of dollars, are somehow fixed by the struggling city.
Explaining the problems to the city in testimony released on March 4, the CBC said, “By this, for example, we mean that the funding required to support the current level of City FHEPS vouchers—whose costs are expected to exceed $800 million this year but are budgeted at approximately $150 million next year—should be in the budget before adding or expanding this or other programs. Adding programs when the current ones are not fully funded, yet are expected to continue, adds unsupportable weight to the fiscal house of cards.”
It continued, “CBC’s analysis finds that the Preliminary Budget presents balanced budgets for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 as required by law; however, proposed spending in fiscal year 2025 is short by $3.6 billion needed to continue the current level of services. (A full table is provided with the testimony.) Furthermore, spending in fiscal years 2026 through 2028—assuming ongoing programs will be fully funded—is similarly understated. Adding this, we project the future budget gaps are between $8.8 billion to $9.7 billion, even without expanding City FHEPS or complying with the State class size reduction law, and assuming the Administration’s revenue estimates hold.”
The testimony added that the city’s unfunded programs problem is reaching “critical levels,” saying, “The current level of underfunded ongoing programs, which started in the years right before the pandemic and was increased by using federal COVID aid for recurring programs, has reached critical levels—$3.6 billion next year, far exceeding in-year budgetary reserves of $1.45 billion.“
Further, the New York Post claimed that the four-year deficit for the city is even worse than Mayor Adams and his administration admit to. According to the NYP article, the four-year deficit for the city is not the already “alarming” $16.3 billion that Mayor Adams admits to, but rather a figure nearly double that: $31.2 billion.
Emphasizing that even that disastrously large ~$31 billion figure isn’t the worst-case scenario, the NYP article added that it could grow still larger if there is an economic downturn that leads to lower tax revenues and larger spending on social and welfare programs. “If the economy crashes, that number grows worse still; New York is beyond screwed,” the NYP claimed.
Amidst these budgetary issues, Mayor Adams has still defended the policy of handing out debit cards loaded with thousands of dollars to illegal immigrants, calling the policy a “smart move.” Watch him speak on the matter here:
Featured image credit: Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber announce a Subway Safety Plan at Fulton Transit Center on Fri., February 18, 2022…(Marc A. Hermann / MTA)
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