On Friday, Mayor Eric Adams took aim at Governor Kathy Hochul over what he called a “1.6 billion-dollar hole in resources to our city,” lamenting that other citywide elected officials have not spoken up on the matter. Adams had unveiled his own $115 billion budget proposal on Thursday at his alma mater, Bayside High School in Queens, calling it the “best budget ever.” That proposal needs to be confirmed by the City Council before taking effect on July 1st.
The mayor’s snipes at the governor came in a roundtable Q&A with ethnic media outlets at Gracie Mansion. “We shared over and over again that we were encouraged to enroll in the childcare voucher program,” Adams told reporters. “This was their program, always funded by them, and we were told that now, they want us to pick up 300 million dollars of that.” The mayor also said that the city was being left on the hook for another $300 million of “other items” caused by the state government shifting funding burdens to the city, as well as a cut of all funding for asylum seekers in the Big Apple, which he said amounted to another billion dollars. “This is a state problem. We send more money to Albany than we get back […] We should not be left to fight these issues on our own.” Adams then lamented the lack of company in his cause. “You don’t find that strange?” He asked rhetorically. “Not one citywide elected is talking about a 1.6 billion dollar hole in resources to our city. That’s unacceptable.”
“Since taking office, Governor Hochul has increased funding for childcare subsidies in New York City by 124% while City spending has remained relatively flat for over 25 years,” a spokesperson for Governor Hochul told La Voce in a statement responding to the mayor’s comments. “Even with massive state subsidies, keeping hundreds of thousands of kids enrolled in child care must be a shared responsibility. With the additional $400M in the FY2026 budget, we are pleased to offer the Mayor and local leaders the funding they need to deliver seats to their constituents.”
Mayor Adams also contrasted the challenges surrounding the state’s budget with clawbacks of already-disbursed funds by the Trump administration, claiming that the former was of greater concern than the latter. “The federal government took a hundred and something million from us. The state is taking 1.3 billion from us,” Adams said. “We can’t be just willing to fight when we don’t like the party that’s in power, we have to be willing to fight for the city of New York.”
In February, the Trump administration took $80 million of congressionally approved FEMA funds from city accounts that was meant to go to services for asylum seekers, with the president threatening further cuts to sanctuary cities like New York. The move was made without notice to Congress or any other government entity, making it a blatant violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which dictates how the president can withhold congressionally approved funds. Adams stated that “there are court cases being filed on that” through the city’s lawyers at the Corporation Counsel.
It remains to be seen how effective trusting the justice system will turn out to be for recovering those federal funds, even if the city wins in court, as the Trump administration is currently defying federal judges and even the Supreme Court of the United States where it disagrees with rulings. In the meantime, mayoral candidates seeking to unseat Adams are proposing to withhold funds owed to the federal government in light of the clawbacks. State Senator and mayoral candidate Jessica Ramos has introduced the RECOURSE Act, which would withhold funds owed from the state to the federal government in the same amount to what Trump withholds from New York. Former State Senator and Obama staffer Michael Blake has proposed the same policy as part of his campaign, stating that officials need to be ready to “check a bullet” as they deal with the aggressive politics emanating from the White House.
