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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly formed “mass engagement” arm will shell out cushy, six-figure salaries — totaling nearly $2 million in taxpayer cash — to more than a dozen activist-minded hires, The Post has learned.
The Mamdani administration is seeking to fill 14 spots in the loosely defined Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement that aims to bring the Democratic Socialists of America’s mobilization model to City Hall.
“The Soviet politburo called, they want their job announcement back,” one Democratic strategist quipped.
Mamdani has said he wants to bring the ground game of the DSA into City Hall. William Farrington for NY Post
The slate of well-paid worker bees will be tasked with building out a volunteer system for local advocacy campaigns, both citywide and for individual boroughs, through “co-governance,” according to job postings released earlier this month.
The descriptions for the various gigs — including campaign directors, borough directors and community liaisons — all read like a playbook from the NYC-DSA’s ground game that helped elect the young democratic socialist to the city’s highest office.
“I’m old enough to remember when the mayor’s office didn’t need co-governance with anyone,” the strategist source noted.
It’s not known how much City Hall has allocated for the mayoral office aside from the roughly $1.6 million in salary for the open positions — and the more than a quarter of a million dollars for the commissioner, longtime DSA member Tascha Van Auken.
Van Auken, who served as Mamdani’s field director during the mayoral campaign, will lead the office that’s broadly billed as being “responsible for strategizing, coordinating, and executing on engagement that reaches the masses of everyday New Yorkers.”
One listing that took some insiders back was the campaign director post — paid between $140,000 and $150,000 — that they said mirrors the work of political campaign staffers.
The new office is seemingly ripe for DSA members to join up. Getty Images
The duties include to “develop strategy, process, and metrics of success for scalable campaigns that help New Yorkers join town halls, training, canvases, and other events that forge relationships and leadership development among regular New Yorkers.”
“Why doesn’t the mayor just call it the ‘Director of Re-Election Political Get Out of the Vote Using Government Money’ and just get it over with?” another Dem operative raged.
The newly created post of deputy director of co-governance — which comes with a comfortable $150,000 salary — particularly raised eyebrows in political circles.
That person will be tasked with creating “internal Co-Governance training to build interagency understanding of co-governance best practices and alignment for transforming relationships with the community,” and training for communities to ” to engage and drive mass governance projects and campaigns.”
Longtime DSA member Tascha Van Auken will be receiving over $250,000 for her new position. Paul Martinka
The language is almost identical to what NYC DSA co-chair Grace Mausser called for in her manifesto last year, “Building Municipal Socialism in New York With DSA.”
“We have a model for winning mass campaigns; we have a model for true co-governance with legislators; now we will bring our experience to city hall,” she wrote, calling for the DSA to infiltrate the city’s political ranks.
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The other roles posted were: two deputy borough directors, three borough managers, three borough leads, two community liaisons and two campaign managers. The borough leads had the lowest salaries at $80,000 to $90,000.
Borough managers will potentially represent City Hall during emergencies throughout the city — instead of the mayor’s office.
“In emergencies, Borough Managers might be asked to be on the scene to represent the Mayor’s Office,” the job posting reads. “Emergencies include, but are not limited to, blackouts, tragic deaths, high-profile crimes, fires where people are impacted, and water main breaks or street collapses where people are evacuated from their homes.”
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a press conference after an Air Canada Express jet collided with a ground vehicle at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, U.S., March 23, 2026. REUTERS
Its unclear whether the office will be limited to these 15 total spots or if Mamdani plans to grow the ranks further in the future.
Democratic strategist Ken Frydman said the current open gigs were duplicative.
“There are already people overseeing city services throughout the five boroughs: they’re called commissioners and deputy commissioners,” he said.
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“Why would a ‘campaigns director’ be on the city payroll, paid for by taxpayers? Mamdani should pay the ‘campaigns director’ from his own campaign funds.”
The office has already been compared to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s taxpayer-funded PR machine that churned out more than 250 YouTube videos in his first two years in office.
The over-the-top vids were produced by Blaz’s former campaign workers and drew criticism, including that he was using City Hall for his own personal political purposes.
Former President Barack Obama had created a similar apparatus to push his agenda when in office — but he set up a non-profit to help with the implementation of his policies. None of those people were paid on taxpayer dime.
The new City Hall job postings come as Mamdani cries poverty to Albany, calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to hike taxes on the wealthy over the Big Apple’s purported $5.4 billion budget gap.
City Hall did not comment.