Mayor Adams Announces First 5% Budget Cuts With More to Come

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Get ready, New Yorkers: there are budget cuts are coming for New York City agencies, and they will likely have an impact on day-to-day life in the city. The Adams administration points to the declining COVID-19 financing and the cost of caring for tens of thousands of migrants as the reasons behind the 5% reductions.

“This is going to impact the city,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to get beyond this without every agency being impacted. I spoke with my cultural institutions today, my nonprofits. We’re going to let New Yorkers know this is a very painful moment for all of us.”

Here's a breakdown:

Policing

The NYPD intends to reduce the force to 29,000 officers over the next four years; these are the lowest number since the mid-1990's. To meet the cuts, the NYPD is postpoining. the next five classes of recruits.

Schools

The New York City Education Department will cut nearly $550 million from its budget open positions in public schools may be eliminated due to educational cuts uts, and pre-K and universal 3-K programs may see whole class sizes eliminated.

Ten million dollars will be lost to community schools, and the city's Summer Rising program would suffer due to shortened days and hours for the 30,000 middle school spots.

Libraries

Many of the largest library branches in the Bronx and Brooklyn will no longer be open on Sundays. The New York Public Library will be cutting back on new materials and programming.

“The council has to put forward our own analysis… if there are places where we need to find savings, we’re going to put together some alternate areas where we can save money,” said City Council member and chair of the council’s finance committee Justin Brannan. “We don’t have to make cuts or freezes to the NYPD or street cleaning, and that’s on us as a council to put those ideas forward.”

In New York City, there remains a $7 billion budget gap and similar cuts may also be made in January and April of 2024.