New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani compromised with City Council Speaker Julie Menin on the city’s $126 billion 2027 budget and has visibly left out accommodations for the city’s police force.
“We balanced this budget without resorting to austerity. We protected the services New Yorkers rely on, while restoring honesty to the City’s finances,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “We accelerated the affordability agenda by investing in housing, mental health services, parks, libraries, and students of all ages. This agreement proves that fiscal responsibility and public excellence can go hand in hand.”
The Department of Education is expected to get the lion’s share of the budget, with $37.9 billion earmarked for the department. The Department of Social Services will receive $14.6 billion, compared to only $6.6 billion in funding for the Police Department.
The new budget gives $86.4 million to NYC immigration services that will resist Trump’s efforts to crack down on immigration, and $53 million for a $1,000 college voucher to every public school kindergartener, along with spending to renovate “cultural institutions.” No money was given to recruit officers into the NYPD’s ever-shrinking police force.
Mamdani backed away from his campaign promise to freeze New York Police Department staff levels, proposing to add 580 new officers. In response, about 50 officials and advocates, including Mamdani’s local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, came to City Hall to protest Mamdani’s turnaround.
The agreed-upon budget shows that the mayor has caved to activist demands to weaken the NYPD.
The president of the NYPD’s largest uniformed union, the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), stated the anti-police protesters are not “living in reality” and wished the mayor had kept to his new decision to hire more police officers.
“Our police officers are already overstretched, working long hours with few days off and managing record crowds during one of the busiest periods our city has ever seen,” PBA President Patrick Hendry told amNewYork. “Cops are burning out and leaving by hundreds each month, increasing the burden on those who remain.”
The Comptroller’s Office found that $26.4 million was spent on overtime, with police officers having to be dispatched to planned events, such as “parades, details, and quality of life initiatives,” and hopes to arrange staff schedules to mitigate the overtime.
New York has announced the fewest murders and shooting incidents in the first quarter in recorded history. Year-to-date, New York City reports 20.9% fewer murders and 18.8% less retail theft. This is reportedly due to the NYPD’s data analysis that targets problem areas in the city. This service costs the city $300 million annually, and there was no mention of increasing its budget in the 2027 proposal.
On the campaign trail, the mayor promised to create a $1.1 billion Department of Community Safety that would take over the task of answering mental health-related 911 calls from the NYPD, and has since launched a smaller $260 million Mayor’s Office of Community Safety, the New York Post reports.
Mamdani and Menin were gridlocked in a debate for the past week about whether to expand access to the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) program, the New York Post reports.
Mamdani, pragmatically aware of the budget constraints and bipartisan national scrutiny, opted to take a fiscally conservative approach and not expand access. Menin, a moderate Democrat, took the approach that the CityFHEPS program should be expanded to people at risk of eviction, even if it costs the city $3 billion to $4 billion extra per year, the New York Times states.
“The CityFHEPS rental assistance program is a lifeline for 65,000 of the most vulnerable New Yorkers — but it could and should be serving thousands more,” Menin said in an X post.
Councilwoman Julie Won called Mamdani’s position “a deep betrayal to New Yorkers in the system looking for support to restore their lives,” and joined Menin in pressuring the mayor, according to the New York Post.
The new budget shows Mamdani has expanded the funding of FHEPS by $125 million to her proposed $300 million allocation. Now families who earn half the median area income would be able to apply to CityFHEPS, moving the limit for a family of three from $54,000 to up to $76,000.
Former mayor Eric Adams also resisted the CityFHEPS expansion, vetoing the proposed legislation and suing the city council when they overturned the veto.
Mamdani, in the new budget, has agreed to implement the CityFHEPS expansion and also drop Adams’ lawsuit
Last week, the NYPD and FBI executed search warrants at the homes of current and former NYPD officials, former NYPD chief spokesperson Tarik Sheppard, and NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy, Optimum News 12 reported.
“I promised New Yorkers that under my leadership the NYPD would conduct itself with integrity,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “This investigation and our actions this morning are part of the ongoing effort to fulfill that commitment and hold the Department to its highest ideals.”
“Our government should serve the public with integrity. Any corruption would amount to a serious violation of responsibility within the NYPD and a breach in public trust. Commissioner Tisch has already shown a real commitment to cracking down on corruption and ensuring that the public servants in the NYPD are held to the highest standards,” Tisch said.
Mamdani was only able to balance the budget because the city received a $4 billion grant from Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY), City and State New York reports.
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