Mayor Eric Adams announced details of the fiscal year (FY) 2026 preliminary budget last week and Governor Kathy Hochul released her cemented FY 2026 executive budget this week.
The city’s preliminary budget is $114.5 billion. It prioritizes tax relief, public safety, City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiatives, $137 million towards combatting street homelessness, $17.5 million for career readiness opportunities, and a $170 billion 10-year Capital Plan for citywide infrastructure improvements to transportation and city services. Funding is allocated for tenant protections, rental subsidy programs, fatherhood initiatives, benefits screening, expanding park cleaning services, the new Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Brooklyn, and support for cultural institutions.
“We are making major investments in affordable housing, addressing the severe mental health crises, keeping New Yorkers safe, providing our children with a world-class education and our families with affordable child care, developing major infrastructure projects and parks, investing in cultural institutions, and so much more,” said Adams in a statement. “Our administration is working hard every day to deliver for working-class New Yorkers and make New York City the best place to raise a family.”
It also asserts $3.4 billion in total savings and a $2.4 billion reduction in asylum seeker costs over the next two fiscal years. New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli affirmed that the city’s “finances have stabilized” amid declining costs for asylum seekers and strong revenue, largely from growth in business and property tax collections, according to a December 2024 report.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmember Justin Brannan, who chairs the finance committee, pointed out that some investments are “missing from major city priorities.” In a joint statement, they criticized Adam’s prelim budget for not supporting vital education and mental health programs that were in last year’s budget, as well as axing funding for more parks department positions. “As stewards of our city’s budget and financial health, the Administration must examine and curb wasteful spending that does not serve New Yorkers’ needs, as recent allegations of overtime corruption that are part of repeated budget overages consistently flagged by the Council indicate,” they said.
Hochul’s executive budget is projected at $252 billion, including a $5 billion Affordability Agenda that prioritizes tax cuts, inflation refund checks, and a Child Tax Credit expansion.
Her budget also sets aside $370 million investments for gun violence prevention programs, $77 million in law enforcement deployment to New York City subways, and $35 million for hate crime protection; plans to increase housing supply with a $1 billion investment in New York City housing; includes a $750 million investment in economic development projects with $400 million for Albany’s revitalization; $1 billion investment towards mental health and homelessness; and dedicates $37.4 billion in school aid and $1.8 billion for childcare.
“Governor Hochul and I share the same North Star: to keep our city and state safe,” added Adams. “We appreciate the governor’s commitment to fixing the laws that allow our administration to connect New Yorkers with serious mental illness with the treatment they deserve. By combining these fixes with investments in holistic support, we can provide compassion and care to our brothers and sisters in need.”
Meanwhile, New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) found issues with both the city and state’s immigration and asylum seeker funding.
Murad Awawdeh, who is president and CEO of NYIC, railed against Adam’s “mismanagement” and playing the “blame game” while “scapegoating immigrants for all the city’s problems while simultaneously overinflating the costs associated with recent arrivals.” According to the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) January 2025 report, the city’s new arrival spending indeed was exaggerated by Adam’s office, even as the number of new arrivals declined. The mayor’s office did not update its budget for services with changing arrival trends or actual spending figures as the information became available, confirmed the IBO. The report found that spending in 2024 wound up being $3.8 billion, which is $1 billion lower than it was budgeted to be.
“Drastic cuts were imposed on our public programs, only to be magically reversed because they were never needed in the first place,” said Awawdeh in a statement. “When we look back at how Adams has welcomed our newest neighbors, he chose cruelty and fear-mongering over investments in our communities and future. He doubled down on shelter evictions, and refused to implement cost-effective policies – like getting more people into stable housing – which would actually put people, and our city, on the pathway to success. The ‘savings’ being celebrated in today’s preliminary budget actually just are reduced cost projections that reflect the reality of our City’s finances, not an accomplishment of effective budgeting and policy.”
On Hochul’s budget, Awawdeh said that it should go further to invest in the state protections for immigrant New Yorkers as the new Trump administration vows to target them. He encouraged more dollars for immigration services like free legal representation, language access, the Working Families Tax Credit, Coverage 4 All, and the Housing Access Voucher Program.
“Albany must reaffirm its commitment to supporting all New Yorkers, no matter when they arrived here. This is especially true as Trump threatens to slash social services and pursue risky economic policies,” said Awawdeh. “New York’s working families are going to be hurting even more under our ongoing affordability crisis, despite Hochul’s rhetoric of building a liveable New York. Too many immigrant families – who work and pay taxes here – will not benefit from the proposals she is putting forward.”