Mayor Mamdani Tuesday ordered every NYC agency to find savings cuts of 2.5% as the city is projected to face a multi-billion-dollar budget gap in the upcoming fiscal year.
Chief Savings Officers, who were appointed earlier this year, will be heading these efforts. The officers have found $1.77 billion, or 1.5% in savings in the current fiscal plan. The 2.5 percent in reductions will be for the coming fiscal year.
“Budget season may have just ended, but our work to build a government that delivers more for New Yorkers is never finished. Every dollar we save by making government work better is a dollar we can put toward services New Yorkers rely on,” Mamdani said in a statement.
“By setting these ambitious savings targets early, we’re giving agencies ample time to thoughtfully review their operations, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen the important work they do without compromising service.”
City Comptroller Mark Levine’s office has estimated the budget gap for fiscal year 2028, which starts next summer, could be as much as $8.8 billion. The city’s own estimates put that gap as a bit lower, at $6.4 billion.
“These kind of measures are never easy,” Levine said in a statement on social media. “Launching a savings program now, early in the fiscal year, is the right thing to do. Kudos to the mayor for this prudent step.”
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Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine speaks in Bowling Green Park in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. (Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News)
Andrew Rein, president of budget watchdog Citizens Budget Commission, called the savings target a “good first step.”
“Mayor Mamdani is exactly right to start finding these savings now, as we have been urging,” Rein said. “The City’s budget gaps are large and growing. It will need these savings and even more to balance next year’s budget and become fiscally sound.”