NYC Council leaders say they’ve identified $1.3B that can reverse Mayor Adams’ budget cuts

City Council leaders announced Monday that they’ve identified $1.3 billion in taxpayer cash that they believe should be used to reverse a long list of municipal budget cuts proposed by Mayor Adams.

The new funds were highlighted by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and her top deputies during an afternoon press conference at City Hall, where they rolled out their official response to the mayor’s $102.7 billion preliminary budget proposal for next fiscal year.

The response marks the Council’s first salvo in budget negotiations with the mayor’s team that will continue through the spring. Both sides must agree on a final budget plan by a July 1 deadline.

Speaker Adams, who is not related to the mayor, said the additional $1.3 billion comes from tax revenue that the Adams administration did not recognize in its preliminary plan.

“That leaves $1.3 billion for the city to invest in essential services identified in our budget response that were either cut in the mayor’s preliminary budget or the Council envisioned as important for this very moment,” she said.

The speaker noted that the Council’s projections are consistent with analyses from fiscal experts like the Independent Budget Office, as well as the offices of the state and city comptrollers.

According to the Council’s 56-page response, the new funds dug up by its budget team can be used to offset cuts the mayor floated for the city’s three library systems, the City University of New York, the local 3-K for All program and other initiatives and agencies in the housing and social services sectors.

The mayor’s proposed $36.2 million funding reduction for the library systems — which has become a flashpoint in this year’s budget talks — would be entirely reversed under the Council’s plan.

Beyond plugging the cuts pushed by the mayor, the Council proposed in its plan to boost some categories of funding. That includes jacking up spending levels for the city’s embattled “Right to Counsel” program, which provides free legal representation for Housing Court defendants.

On the flipside, Council members said one area of city spending the mayor isn’t hawkish enough on is NYPD overtime spending.

The Police Department is on track to spend as much as $820 million on overtime this fiscal year — more than double what it was budgeted.

Taking a veiled jab at the mayor’s pledge to not waste taxpayer dollars, Speaker Adams told reporters there is “nothing fiscally responsible about exceeding the budget” and pledged to “rein in” the NYPD overtime spending spree.

“We’re going to continue to press the issue throughout the entire budget process. It’s something the Council agrees that we cannot let go ignored, and we will not,” she said, adding that she believes there needs to be “a change of behavior” at the department.

The mayor’s budget chief, Jacques Jiha, testified before the Council last month that the administration favors a “cautious” spending pattern due to projections showing that the city government could face a $10 billion budget deficit in coming years.

The mayor’s team has also cited concern about the impact the migrant crisis is having on the city’s fiscal health, noting that projections show the administration could shell out $4.2 billion by next summer on sheltering and providing services for asylum seekers.

Jonah Allon, a spokesman for the mayor, said after the Council’s budget response drop that the uncertainty of the future requires “prudent fiscal planning to ensure that we are spending within our means.”

“The City Council’s failure to account for $4.2 billion in related asylum-seeker costs or potential state cuts is unrealistic and does not properly recognize the city’s current and upcoming fiscal challenges,” he said. “We appreciate the Council’s partnership and look forward to working with them in the coming months to negotiate a budget that delivers for New Yorkers.”

Council members countered that they’ve kept the city’s fiscal situation in mind.

On top of the $1.3 billion in proposed additional spending, the Council’s response plan says it identified another $1.4 billion in unrecognized means that it wants to set aside for “potential budgetary risks and outyear gaps.”

The Council’s plan also factors in the cost of new labor contracts for the municipal workforce, using a deal recently reached between the administration and DC37, the city’s largest public sector union, as the framework.

As the speaker and her colleagues unveiled their budget vision at the City Hall news conference, sources said the mayor is considering implementing another Program to Eliminate the Gap, or PEG, in order to further restrict spending at some municipal agencies.

Asked about the matter, the speaker said she’s heard similar rumors, but added “we haven’t seen anything yet to confirm” another PEG is on the horizon.

“Until and unless we can see something tangible, something that we have to address concretely, we can’t really give a statement to a hypothetical,” she said.