NYC Mayor's $100B Budget Unveiled, Safety Is 'Top Priority'

BROOKLYN, NY — Public safety will stay a "top priority" in a final $99.7-billion executive spending plan unveiled by Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday, he said.

The budget — which will head next to City Council before the start of the fiscal year on July 1 — includes funding for both the mayor's controversial Subway Safety Plan and Blueprint To End Gun Violence and an increase to the NYPD budget, which has been the subject of fraught debate the last two years.

Despite making safety a forefront of his first few months, Adams maintained that "far too many lives" were taken by crime or tragedy in his first 100 days in office. Among them were a 12-year-old shot in Brooklyn, the 17 victims of a massive Bronx fire and a woman pushed in front of a train car at the start of the year.

"I will not rest until we address the conditions that led to that loss," Adams said. "There is no doubt in my mind that New York City will make a full recovery … but this is only possible if we continue to make public safety our top priority."

Official numbers for the police budget increase had still not been released by the mayor's office late Tuesday, but Adams said at a press conference that overtime pay, contracts for detectives and new initiatives like his Neighborhood Safety Teams drove up spending for the department.

"All of my initiatives, they cost money," the mayor said. "This is not spending, this is investing."

The NYPD increase comes after the mayor proposed a dip in the police budget in his first budget draft in February, which sought to tackle "wasteful spending."

In total, the mayor's final budget proposal is around $1 billion more than a preliminary $98.5 billion spending plan he unveiled in February.

If passed, it will be the largest budget in New York City history, according to reports.

Since the first proposal, City Council members had pushed for the mayor to add a long list of investments they deem necessary for the city's coronavirus recovery.

Among the new budget items announced Tuesday are an initiative to provide every young person on parole with a mentor and a $55 million expansion of a pilot program that sends mental health specialists to emergency calls. City Council members had called for the mental health expert program to be expanded.

Adams said Tuesday that federal funds helped increase spending in the final proposal while keeping $2 billion in cuts to city agencies, who he asked to each reduce their budgets by 3 percent.

The final executive budget also calls for adding $200 million more to the city's reserves than his original plan. In total, the executive budget sets aside $6.3 billion, the largest in city history.

The final budget included several items the mayor previewed this week, including a $900 million investment in street safety and a $170 million plan to add 1,400 shelter beds for the city's homeless, who he has sought to push out of subway stations and street encampments to the chagrin of advocates.

The mayor also plans to cut 855 vehicles from the fleet used by the city in an effort to save taxpayer dollars and reduce carbon emissions.

Adams' budget presentation also served as a celebration of his first 100 days in office, which was marked earlier this month the same day he received a positive coronavirus diagnosis.

Flanked by blessings from five different religious leaders and musical performances by first responders, Adams took a hopeful tone to a packed crowd at Brooklyn's historic Kings Theatre.

He pointed specifically to 50,000 jobs added in the first three months of this year, a drop in New York City's unemployment rate, rising tourism and a 97-percent vaccination rate among adults.

"We’ve been through a lot. We have struggled and survived," Adams said. "After two years, we are ready to be together again — reunited and it feels so good."

This article originally appeared on the Tribeca-FiDi Patch