NYC Mayor Adams has shielded the NYPD, the FDNY, and the Sanitation Department from further budget cuts, but has directed his administration to find a way to cut $2.1 billion in projected spending on housing and services for newly arrived migrants, according to a new City Hall memo.
All agency heads received the memo on Monday morning, which was written by Jacques Jiha, the director of budget for Hizzoner. It comes days after the Adams administration unveiled the mayor’s revised November financial plan, which called for significant agency-wide budget cutbacks as part of a 5% decrease in total municipal government expenditure that was first mandated in September due to financial worries raised by the migrant crisis.
The administration “must do more” to control costs as the city is still looking at a $7.1 billion deficit for the 2025 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, Jiha wrote in the memo, even though all agencies were able to come up with plans to meet the 5% spending reduction target from September.
Jiha noted that the administration intends to move forward with enacting an additional 5% cut to municipal government expenditure in January through the so-called Program to Eliminate the Gap, or PEG. Agencies have until December 8 to submit their plans on how they will meet the January PEG target, Jiha wrote.
The NYPD, FDNY, and the Sanitation Department will not be required to participate in the January PEG, in contrast to the September directive that required cuts at all city agencies. Jiha claims that this is because further budget cuts at these agencies “could impact public safety, health, and cleanliness.”
Even if those three organizations are spared, Jiha stated in his epistle that in addition to the January PEG, the government is enacting another, even more severe budget-cutting measure that is especially meant to reduce expenses associated with providing care for recently arrived migrants.
According to Jiha, the administration will need to cut its budget for housing and other services for migrants by 20% in order to implement this extra plan in the current fiscal year of 2024.
The administration plans to spend $4.7 billion in the fiscal year 2024 responding to the migrant problem; therefore, in order to meet the 20% savings mandate, the mayor’s staff will need to reduce that amount by $940 million. According to Jiha, the same PEG will also call for a 20% drop in expenditure on costs related to the migrant problem in fiscal year 2025, or an additional $1.18 billion in savings, for a total reduction of almost $2.12 billion by mid-2025.
The mayor’s aim of limiting successive stays to 30 days for single adult migrants and 60 days for migrant families with children would help the administration save money by continuing to “reduce the length of shelter stays” for migrants.
Nearly 66,000 migrants, primarily from Latin America, are still being sheltered in municipal shelters, according to the most recent figures from municipal Hall; this is costing the government millions of dollars every week.
