‘Unusually severe’: A once-popular New York mayor now finds critics on all sides amid steep budget cuts

NEW YORK — Beleaguered New York City Mayor Eric Adams has managed to unite Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Trump-supportive firefighters, conservative commentators and Cardi B in opposition to his proposed multibillion-dollar budget cuts.

As right-wing media rails against the taxpayer cost of housing migrants, the famed rapper was riffing on a doomsday scenario of a cash-strapped city drowning in rats.

And for New Yorkers whom Adams counts as political allies — unionized city workers who endorsed his last mayoral run — the planned cut is fueling a lawsuit against his administration.

Now the mayor of the nation’s largest city, who sailed into office declaring himselfthe new “face” of the Democratic Party, is hobbled by the fiscal toll of an influx of asylum seekers and his decision to blame everything on that issue. As he winds down his second year in office, Adams finds himself not only fending off questions of federal investigations and sagging poll numbers, but navigating political blowback on every side.

“These budget cuts strike me as unusually severe, the most severe budget cuts that I’ve seen in two decades,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) said, adding that they will have “implications far beyond a particular budget.”

“I anticipate opposition to these cuts will transcend the ideological divides within the city body politic,” Torres added.

The unraveling of Adams’ broad political coalition comes as the mayor faces a $7 billion budget hole, while navigating a federal investigation into his 2021 campaign, record-low poll numbers and an increasingly expensive migrant crisis.

And the budget cuts are bringing his job approval rating even lower. According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 83 percent of New Yorkers expressed concern the mayor’s cuts would impact their daily lives.

On the mayor’s left flank, progressive Democrats are protesting the closures of libraries on Sundays, the plan to slash a composting program until an anonymous donor swept in to save it and cuts to citywide prekindergarten. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who backed Eric Adams in his mayoral primary, also pushed back on his administration for blaming the budget cuts on the influx of asylum-seekers.

From his political base, Henry Garrido — executive director of the largest public-sector union, District Council 37 — is suing to stop the mayor’s “short-sighted” budget cuts. The union was an early backer of Adams’ 2021 campaign.

Now the city’s firefighters union is calling out Adams’ cuts as a direct threat to public safety. The union is shelling out roughly $10,000 per week to broadcast the anti-Adams message on New York radio stations.

“These needless cuts will delay New York City firefighters from putting out fires. Lost seconds equal lost lives,” Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, said in an advertisement being broadcast on 1010 WINS and WFAN. In a second radio ad airing on 770WABC, he named Adams directly, blaming his proposal to reduce staffing on “20 of New York City’s busiest engine companies” on “migrant crisis-related budget cuts.”

To close a $7.1 billion gap before the new fiscal year takes effect on July 1, Adams mandated that agency heads slash their spending by 5 percent three times between last month and April.

The police, fire and sanitation departments are exempt from the second round of cuts. The mayor has also instituted a citywide hiring freeze, from which department officials can apply for exemptions.

The budget covering this fiscal year, which concludes June 30, surpasses $110 billion. The proposed cuts must be approved by the City Council, and city budgets are often subject to an ongoing feud between the mayor and the legislative body referred to as a “budget dance.”

Previous mayors have faced their share of flak over budgetary decisions. But both Adams and his critics are quick to point out the city is in an “unprecedented moment.”

“You've got the costs related to the migrant influx, but at the same time you've got the end of the final termination of COVID stimulus funds, so it's sort of swept up into this perfect storm,” Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan said.

The Council’s Progressive Caucus — which recently rallied against the cuts — is now mapping out an opposition strategy that includes heading to Albany next year to try to secure funds for schools, libraries and other services.

“We’re committed to having a presence in Albany this year to help raise revenue and we will be out on the proverbial steps of City Hall protesting these draconian cuts and shining a light at oversight hearings until Mayor Adams changes his tune,” Caucus Co-chair Lincoln Restler said in an interview.

The caucus is also proposing an alternative budget strategy it says will yield an additional $5 billion to $6 billion in revenue. It will include proposals like counting savings from the last two years of hiring freezes and advocating for increased state aid.

“It is really giving the Progressive Caucus a lot more strength to know that our coalition is building,” Shahana Hanif, also Caucus co-chair, added.

Labor leaders ramp up legal fight

DC 37, which filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Manhattan last week, accused the mayor and the administration of failing to implement a cost-benefit analysis before proposing cuts that would eliminate 2,300 “job training participants” in the parks and sanitation departments. Garrido said the positions will now be filled with non-union contractors.

The union’s move exposes a vulnerability within Adams’ political base. As the city’s second Black mayor, he emerged as a figure to whom many of the union’s Black and Latino members could relate. DC 37 represents 150,000 municipal employees and 89,000 retirees, many of whom are Democrats living within the five boroughs.

The city’s teachers union — which has a complex relationship with Adams — is also mulling its legal options.

“It is under consideration,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew told POLITICO Friday, when asked whether the union will sue over the cuts, before praising DC 37’s lawsuit.

Past mayoral budget cycles

Key figures from the city’s bygone administrations were quick to point out that no mayor is immune from public ire when services are reduced, especially when the need to cut the fat is so dire, as it is now.

George Arzt, former Mayor Ed Koch’s press secretary, who has been on the New York political scene for more than half a century, remembered when former Mayor John Lindsay’s 1968 budget proposal had New Yorkers fearing hospitals would shut down without state aid.

“They were all scare tactics,” Arzt said. “Luckily, we don't do anything as dramatic as Lindsay did, but every budget is always very similar, and it's hashed out over time.”

Arzt also recalled when the city was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1975 under former Mayor Abe Beame’s leadership. That year, the state intervened to create the Municipal Assistance Corporation, an independent public-private entity that sold bonds on behalf of New York City to rescue it from financial calamity.

“This is not ‘75, ‘76, and he’ll learn to work it out,” Arzt said of Adams.

Howard Wolfson, who served as a deputy mayor under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, acknowledged Adams is facing a "difficult moment," but argued mayors can bounce back from low poll numbers if they remain focused and the city improves.

Bloomberg, for example, had low approval ratings in his first term due to a property tax increase, a smoking ban in the city’s bars and restaurants that was initially unpopular, and massive budget cuts. But his standing improved dramatically over his years in office.

And because the city has ample media outlets that follow the mayor closely, Adams could promote his accomplishments, he added.

"Every mayor goes through a down moment where the polls are bad and the sharks start circling and … people are emboldened to criticize and those moments are often just that," said Wolfson, who now leads education programs for Bllomberg’s philanthropic organization. "People are very quick to write political obituaries, and I think that there are a lot of very successful mayors who had obituaries written for them prematurely, like Mike Bloomberg."

When asked to comment on the mayor’s decreasing popularity, a City Hall spokesman referred POLITICO to comments Adams made on a radio show earlier this month.

“Our fight with the federal government over [the] funding that we need and deserve to handle our asylum seeker crisis and other basic services has reached a breaking point,” the mayor said at the time. “And now, harsh and unfair cuts must be made to the city's budget that I absolutely do not want to make. This is not the budget I want. New Yorkers are angry. I hear it, I see it, I feel it. And you know what? I'm angry, too.”