While New York City must propose a balanced budget in January for the coming fiscal year, some say Adams’ approach to closing the gap—multiple rounds of budget cuts across most agencies—is a blunt instrument, and not the only option.
“When Mayor Adams presents his budget Thursday, consider the choices he’s made and the impact on the working class and the services they rely on government to deliver. As a matter of leadership, he’s giving away the store. At some point, we need to begin a conversation finally about who pays what and who subsidizes whom?”
The city’s more than 300 Older Adult Centers saw an average of 24,261 daily participants during the last fiscal year that ended in June, still shy of pre-pandemic numbers but up nearly 28 percent since 2021-2022.
Amid a record-breaking homelessness crisis, there are some bright spots. Mayor Adams has dedicated roughly $4 billion in capital funding to construct affordable housing—a campaign promise that he fell short on last year. Yet staffing cuts and shortages still plague the city agencies tasked with assisting homeless New Yorkers.
Lawyers who represent tenants facing eviction in housing court are poised to see millions of dollars in new funding in the coming year, yet far less than the roughly $350 million boost they’ve said is needed for the Right to Counsel program to live up to its name.
The city pilot program called Promise NYC, which covered up to $700 a week in child care to undocumented children with low-income parents during the second half of 2023, will be continued and expanded in the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, City Limits has learned.
“Between chronic underfunding, a change in administration, and pandemic staff shortages, the process of filing and resolving complaints at the Commission has slowed to a standstill. Mayor Eric Adams’s current budget contains even more cuts to the commission which do nothing but create unnecessary harm to everyday New Yorkers.”
“New York City’s forested natural areas receive just 0.0042 percent of the city’s funds, basically a rounding error in New York City’s over $100 billion budget.”
“New York City’s Department of Education recommends schools spend just $80.15 per student on arts education—yet school leaders can use that money for other classes and programs, often resulting in the total elimination of arts programming in a school.”
The bill determines how money generated from the program will be spent but fails to include protective measures for disadvantaged communities, environmentalists warn.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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