NEW YORK — New York Mayor Eric Adams released New York City’s $106.7 billion executive budget for fiscal year 2024 (FY24) on Wednesday.
Mayor Adams unveiled the largest executive budget in city history to protect essential programs that support working New Yorkers while preparing for economic headwinds by continuing his strong record of fiscal responsibility.
The budget also includes strategic investments that improve the quality of life for New Yorkers, including investments that create sustainability and resiliency programs, strengthen the city’s mental health resources, build the college’s journey to career and encourage workers. .
“Our FY2024 Executive Budget puts the agenda of our workers first and enables our city to work for the benefit of all New Yorkers. But the challenges we face are real, including the costs of the asylum seeker crisis, the need to fund labor agreements and slowing tax revenue growth, and we need to budget smartly,” said the Mayor Adams. “PEG has been a success, achieving $1.6 billion in savings over the two fiscal years and more than $3 billion in subsequent years without a single layoff or service reduction. Additionally, we haven’t cut a single cent from libraries or cultural institutions, and we’ve adjusted savings targets for agencies to avoid reducing critical needs. This budget also provides preliminary investments to encourage working New Yorkers, make our city more sustainable, strengthen mental health services and build the college-to-career pipeline. We’ve had to make tough decisions in this budget and balance competing needs, but our administration always puts the well-being of New Yorkers first, second and third.”
Fiscal years 23 and 24 remain balanced, with variances of $4.2 billion, $6.0 billion, and $7.0 billion for fiscal years 2025 through 2027, respectively. The growth of $4.0 billion in FY24 over the preliminary budget is driven by refugee claimant costs and funding for labor agreements with the city’s workforce.
Last year, more than 57,000 asylum seekers arrived in New York and more than 35,000 remain in city custody. As a result, the city projects the cost of providing shelter, food, clothing and other services to asylum seekers will cost $4.3 billion through the end of FY24.
In recent months, Mayor Adams also unveiled labor agreements with the 37th Ward Council and the Police Benevolent Association, which set out the financial framework for labor agreements with the city’s workforce. The total incremental cost of reaching deals with the rest of the city’s unionized workforce is expected to be about $16 billion over the life of the financial plan.
In response to the dramatic increase in the cost of supporting asylum seekers and the need to add funds to support labor agreements, Mayor Adams implemented an executive budget gap reduction program ( PEG) to reduce costs and promote efficiency. .
PEG achieved savings of $1.6 billion in fiscal years 23 and 24 without laying off a single employee or cutting any services. This PEG was applied strategically and the Adams administration did not cut a penny from the budgets of the New York City public libraries or the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, which funds museums and other cultural institutions, due to fears that budget cuts at this time would negatively affect their ability to provide basic services.
Tax revenue increased $2.1 billion in FY23 and $2.3 billion in FY24, driven by better-than-expected corporate income tax growth. individuals, business tax and sales tax, and helped maintain the balance. Financial experts are widely predicting an economic downturn later this year, which will slow the city’s tax revenue growth for years to come.
Rosarina Breton informs us.