Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Announces Handshake Agreement on Fiscal Year 2027 Budget
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good morning, everyone. I would like to start by thanking Speaker Menin, Finance Chair Linda Lee and the entire City Council for their partnership. And I want to thank Sherif Soliman, my director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the entire OMB team for their incredible hard work and their devotion to our city. Twenty-one weeks ago, I spoke directly to New Yorkers about the scale of the massive budget crisis that we had inherited. It was January — snow lay on the ground. Our city was reckoning with a $12 billion deficit, a fiscal crisis larger than any since the Great Recession. For too long, New York City had relied on budgeting tricks instead of budgeting honestly. Costs were hidden, fiscal cliffs were ignored [and] difficult decisions were deferred for someone else to make. We chose a different path. Fourteen weeks later, after long nights and painstaking work, we presented an executive budget that brought that $12 billion gap down to zero. We balanced the budget without asking working New Yorkers to shoulder the burden once again. We balanced the budget without slashing the services that New York is relying on, the cultural institutions and public transportation that connect people to the city and to one another. And we balanced the budget by governing with a fiscal responsibility that has been absent for far too long from City Hall. We scoured for savings. We found efficiencies in streamlined City government. We refused to repeat the mistakes that created the crisis in the first place. We budgeted honestly. We accounted for the real costs facing our city, and we began building a government that plans for tomorrow instead of pretending that it will never come. We work closely with Governor Hochul and our partners in both Albany and here at the City Council. And we raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers instead of taking more from those with the least. Throughout this process, I've been reminded of the words of the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, “If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists.” If these past months have shown us anything, it is that socialists not only understand economics just as well as the capitalists who came before but that we can solve their years of mismanagement through an embrace of our principles. There is nothing fiscally responsible about balancing the budget on the backs of working people. Today, six weeks after presenting our executive budget, I am proud to stand alongside Speaker Menin and the City Council to announce that we have successfully negotiated an agreement on a final adopted budget. We have worked together to usher in a new era of fiscal health for our city — one that is sustainable, one that is durable, and one that makes needed investments in a safer, more affordable New York. I've spoken at great length about building a new culture of government excellence. I am proud that this budget reflects that very commitment. This is a $125.8 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2027. It makes historic investments in affordable housing by expanding rental assistance and creating a new $175 million housing voucher program for New Yorkers in need. We are not just helping tenants; we are helping homeowners as well as we expand the Homeowner Help Desk, and we're supporting those who have endured domestic violence as we fund housing stability microgrants. We are looking out for our students, including students with disabilities who have too often been left behind. And we're supporting our CUNY students both in school and beyond with investments like CUNY's Reconnect, which helps adult New Yorkers return to school and get their degrees, as well as disability services, academic support and so much more. And we are making public transit more affordable for low-income New Yorkers by increasing the baseline for Fair Fares by $54 million. This budget makes meaningful investments in the health and safety of New Yorkers. As we prepare to mark 25 years since the horrific September 11th terror attacks, we are committing more than $34 million to create a public portal that will finally release documents from across City government related to post-9/11 air quality and health risks. For too long, New Yorkers who have become sick have had to fight for information that should have been theirs from the very beginning. We will provide the transparency that New Yorkers living with post-9/11 health concerns deserve. We are strengthening mental health services across our city. Working with the Progressive Caucus, we are making sweeping investments in mobile mental health treatment and crisis-to-care programs, including Crisis Respite Centers. And in a time where too many of our fellow New Yorkers are reckoning with discrimination, we will increase the budget of the New York City Commission on Human Rights as well as support our immigrant communities by growing the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Legal Support Hotline. And we are committing to the public institutions that make New York City the greatest city in the world. We will invest $10 million in each of the next three fiscal years to create a cultural stability fund to help arts organizations weather financial emergencies. And we're baselining funding for the Parks Department that had previously been added one year at a time, funding more than 100 new staff and allowing us to invest in our community gardens and tree stump removal. In addition, we are creating a new Parks pilot program called “Renew Crew” to fix up playgrounds, basketball courts and the fields where New Yorkers spend their summers. Finally, we're adding $350 million to the city's general reserve, proof positive of our commitment to governing with fiscal responsibility. Above all else, this budget offers a roadmap for the years to come. This is only the first budget of our administration. Many more will follow. And every budget that follows will build on the principles established here. Honest budgeting, fiscal discipline, transparent government and an unwavering belief that working people deserve a City Hall that delivers for them every single day. We will return to this budget as a reminder of how much more is made possible when we shake off the shackles of the status quo and pursue the transformative change that New Yorkers deserve. That means finding efficiencies; it means cutting waste; and it means taxing the rich. We will return to this budget when we are told, as we so often are, that we must budget with austerity rather than ambition. And we will return this budget as a model of how to invest in our city, how to place working people at the heart of our political decisions, and how to govern with an enduring commitment to fiscal health and fiscal responsibility. Thank you. And now I would like to invite City Council Speaker Julie Menin to the podium.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, I've been talking to all agency heads about ways to find savings. And Commissioner Tisch and I were able to identify ways to keep the NYPD head count at the originally authorized 35,000, while also meeting all of our crime-fighting needs and implementing the new programs that were announced earlier this year.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYou know, I'm proud that the speaker and I — and all of our teams — were able to come to an agreement that, as the speaker said, is a win for all New Yorkers. And I've been clear about my support for this program, my support of the intent of delivering for the neediest New Yorker, and what we announced today is a $175 million investment into helping those very New Yorkers stay in their homes. And we're also announcing that while resolving a lawsuit that the prior administration had little interest in negotiating, and frankly, even less in bringing to an end. And we do all of this as we write a new chapter in what it can look like to deliver for the city.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, our partners in the non-profit sector, as you heard from Finance Chair Lee, deliver vital services to New Yorkers and we will send all eligible non-profits the 50 percent advance payments that would put us in full compliance with the Council law. I'm gonna pass it over to Budget Director Soliman to add some additional details.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think to the first point, as you as you heard the speaker mention, we have not only been negotiating the amount of money that we're going to be investing into a new rental assistance program, but also how to bring to an end what we inherited from the prior administration in a lawsuit with the City Council. And we are resolving that lawsuit with a commitment, not only to the intent of the legislation, but the fiscal responsibility that for far too long has been absent in what City Hall has been doing in years past. And as we've also said, we know that the number one crisis New Yorkers are facing is the cost of living. And we have to address that crisis in a comprehensive manner. That means providing assistance in rental payments. That also means providing a new historic baseline for Fair Fares. And that also means working together to build more housing than we have seen in the city's recent history. I'll pass it over to our speaker.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, I'll just pass it over to my budget director.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'll say on the first question, when I was running for mayor, I spoke about the importance of raising eligibility to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And this does that. We raised this Fair Fares eligibility to a historic amount. And we also do so while being fully committed to delivering busses that are not only fast, but also free. And that is part of our medium-term vision, our long-term vision. And we do this because we want to ensure that, in the nation's most expensive city, there is no one that is priced out of exploring their own city and traveling, whether it be for work, whether to visit family or whether it just be for fun. And we can believe and fight for all of these things at the same time.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'm just going to add one last thing before we wrap up, which is you've heard from both the speaker and myself, I do just want all of us to underline that for all of the faces that you see here, for all the names that you have heard, truly the staff on both the City Council [and] the administration have poured so many days, weeks, months into this process and we are deeply, deeply appreciative of all of them. The further you look from the microphone, the more you will find people who made this happen. And you will find them in all of the different corridors. And I think, in many ways, it is reflective of how our city runs, how our city works. It's city workers who do it every single day. And I know that the Council will join in just saying thank you to all of those workers for this and for everything that we do. Thank you.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Announces Handshake Agreement on Fiscal Year 2027 Budget.