Revving revenues
Once again, the City Council has strongly disagreed with Mayor Adams’ budget projections, now estimating $3.3 billion more in tax revenues than Hizzoner for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 and much more after that. We are now set for another Speaker Adams versus Mayor Adams showdown on the contours of city spending.
It’s not particularly unusual for the two ends of City Hall to differ in their estimates, nor is it a rarity for the Council to find more money between the cushions in the form of greater tax and general revenue projections as well as some decreased costs. Last year, the Council had an even more substantial difference of opinion, projecting that the city would take in $5.2 billion more over fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
Ultimately, they were more on the mark, and the mayor’s office has certainly undermined its position by backtracking on its project of significant budget cuts across all city agencies — a supposed necessity announced just months ago that was never very well-explained and quickly discarded.
Budget Director Jacques Jiha himself acknowledged that the administration’s projections incorporated the potential for an economic recession that did not materialize and were otherwise cautious in anticipation of higher migrant spending costs.
Speaking of those costs, the mayor’s office has been pretty quiet on an audit issued by Comptroller Brad Lander last week finding that the city is massively overpaying for migrant services in emergency, no-bid contracts.
Put another way, the spending that was ostensibly the underlying reason for the budget cuts, and which was presented as practically single-handedly dragging the city into insolvency, was inflated by potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
The city’s explanation — that it was reacting to an acute, unprecedented situation and had to act quickly to provide services — has some merit, but it would be more acceptable if we weren’t nearly two years into this situation.
Does that mean that we’re all good, and the state and federal governments have no need to step in and help? Of course not. President Biden, who’s been focused on the enforcement part of the puzzle, has never presented a satisfactory reason why the federal government, which breaks out the checkbook routinely for priorities at home and abroad, has made such anemic funding pools available to the cities and states contending with large migrant populations.
It all seems to be an effort to not be a draw for further immigration, but that doesn’t seem to have worked one bit; the bill is being covered anyway, except that it’s cities paying up.
This also doesn’t mean that the city should go on a spending spree. It did not make sense to preemptively cut agency budgets and services, but Eric Adams is right that the city has seemed quite comfortable ballooning its spending over the last few years, and not always for any clear positive impact.
COVID proved that the rainy days can come without warning, and it’s incumbent on the city to have the ballast to weather these storms and ensure that its investments are getting the most bang for the buck.
Whether that’s streamlining agency processes, cutting down on wasteful emergency contracts, judiciously allocating police overtime costs, or anything else, the extra cash still comes with the same responsibility to the public purse.