Mayor Adams proposes citywide budget cuts amid migrant crisis
NEW YORK (PIX11) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is directing all city agencies to submit plans to cut spending by up to 15% amid the ongoing migrant crisis.
The mayor made the announcement Saturday. He wants each city agency to submit plans to reduce spending by 5% in November’s budget update.
Adams then wants the agencies to reduce spending by another 5% in January’s preliminary budget and again in April’s executive budget. He said there will be no layoffs and the city is working to reduce any impact on services or programs.
The mayor said costs associated with the migrant crisis, along with revenue growth slowing and COVID-19 funding coming to an end, the city could risk a financial disruption if things don’t change soon.
Adams discussed the migrant crisis on PIX on Politics on Sunday, saying the city has borne most of the associated costs, which could cost taxpayers $12 billion over three fiscal years.
“Everything is on the table now. You know, think of this for a moment. We’re talking $12 billion,” he said. “Twelve billion (dollars) of running our city: sanitation, police, education, libraries, everything that we have to run the city. There’s a minimum amount of money that comes in that we have to address this crisis as a national crisis, and we’ve been ignored.”
The mayor says the city is looking at ways to reduce housing and other costs associated with the crisis. He said he’s continuously asking for more federal and start aid to deal with the crisis, and if that were to happen, perhaps these cuts won’t be necessary after all.
He also said the city is looking at other ways to control spending, which will be announced soon.