New York City’s budget hit by migrant costs

City Hall and the City Council focus on Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to make multiple rounds of cuts to city agencies to help fund the growing migrant crisis.

“We’re getting there. Still a few items on the table. Budget will be on time as the council promised,” Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) told The Post via text.

Fiscal hawks predict a deal will be finalized by the midnight Friday deadline, while lawmakers involved in negotiations complain that growing costs of the multibillion-dollar migrant crisis are putting the squeeze on funding for existing agency programs.

Sources familiar with negotiations told The Post on Wednesday that Adams and the city Council have struck a deal to restore roughly $36 million in predicted cuts to the city’s public library system.

The individuals, who wished to remain anonymous, said a deal on the final spending package could be announced as early as Thursday.

“The fight is really to restore basic services and not fund new, exciting programming — because the migrant crisis is costing us way too much money,” Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) told The Post.

The city Office of Management and Budget estimates it’ll cost over $4.3 billion to house, feed and provide other services to over 50,000 migrants living in 176 taxpayer-funded homeless shelters and hotels in the Big Apple.

The Biden administration has greenlit less than $150 million in grant funding for New York to help — as the city spends roughly $8 million daily on the crisis. Gov. Kathy Hochul allocated roughly $1 billion to the Big Apple over the next two years.

“With no plan to end the crisis after July 1st and with 50,000 people in shelters, there’s no sign of this ending in the next fiscal year or anything to prevent it from expanding,” Borelli said.

“Basic costs to the city are at risk — and the mayor has been open about it,” he added.

Adams previously ordered all agencies to make across-the-board cuts, even warning that more could come, sparking outrage that basic services delivered by agencies like the Department of Sanitation, FDNY and NYPD could be negatively impacted.

Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala (D-East Harlem) told The Post that the council is fighting to fund several agency priorities and programs that are still on the negotiating table including:

“It’s just been a very difficult year because we are facing multiple crises that are happening simultaneously, while at the same time dealing with the fiscal consequences of the COVID pandemic.

“Those fiscal implications will be with us for a number of years,” she told The Post.

Andrew Rein, president of the fiscal watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission, said the city needs to think about concerning outyear gaps — projected to rise to over $10 billion by fiscal year 2027.

“I believe it will be done by the deadline. But, the budget is going to be wrapped up and people aren’t going to be thinking about what’s really going on here,” he warned.

Adams already ordered agencies to eliminate thousands of vacant positions, rounding out to roughly $1 billion in savings.

“There is money in the short term in our pockets, but the budget should make the future budget gaps smaller, not bigger … We should be reducing fiscal cliffs,” said Rein.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/28/city-hall-council-still-deciding-how-to-fund-migrant-crisis-with-nycs-107b-budget-due-date-looming/***********************************

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