Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday reversed proposed cuts to the NYPD and FDNY, claiming that the city miscalculated the amount of cash required to balance its budget while absorbing the expense of the immigration crisis.
City Hall discovered its November budget predictions were overly cautious and redistributed the recovered monies, which total around $37 million, according to Adams.
Due to the reversal, the Fire Department will be able to staff some of its busiest engine companies with full time personnel and the Police Department will be able to put a class of 600 recruits through the academy in April.
The mayor pointed out that the cost of the migrant problem for the following fiscal year was estimated to be somewhat over $10 billion, as opposed to the earlier $12 billion.
“In the November plan, we didn’t have any clear understanding of what the fiscal outcome was going to look like,” Adams stated from City Hall. “Instead of having to go back to the team and tell them we underestimated, we wanted to make sure we were getting the right numbers”, he added.
When asked whether any other scheduled cutbacks, including the removal of trash cans close to parks and greenways and Sunday library services, would be made again, Adams replied that his budget director, Jacques Jiha, would inform the media on the budget the following week.
The FDNY would have had to eliminate the so-called “fifth man” at 20 of the busiest engine companies in the city under the now-reversed revisions, a move that the union had denounced as possibly fatal.
Also, the NYPD won’t have to put a hold on recruiting its upcoming class of recruits, but by the end of 2025, personnel levels are still predicted to fall below 30,000 for the first time since the 1990s.
