Whatever tax hikes he gets, Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plans to hire hundreds of new city lawyers and auditors guarantee fresh pain for city businesses. <\/p>\n
One hint: On Friday he ordered \u201ccompliance warnings\u201d to 56,000 employers, plus a \u201cnew data-driven strategy\u201d to micromanage how those businesses comply with paid-time-off laws. <\/p>\n
Large employers can eat those costs; mom-and-pop shops, not so much.<\/p>\n
The mayor means to spend $33 million to hire 200 new city lawyers and 100 support staff<\/a> for the city\u2019s Law Department, plus 50 added Department of Finance auditors.<\/p>\n He claims the lawyers are needed to fight tort lawsuits and so save the city $125 million; if that proves true, we look forward to praising him for it. <\/p>\n But the added firepower could easily go to attacks outlines by transition adviser Lina Khan, who claimed the city could do a lot more enforcement against businesses with imaginative readings of existing statutes. <\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n City Hall\u2019s lawfare strategy also reportedly involves directly representing or funding legal defense for immigrants<\/a> facing deportation.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Expect the mayor\u2019s new auditors to be deployed to extort high-income earners and large corporations with the goal of extracting hundreds of millions more \u2014 and if that drives away a good chunk of the city\u2019s tax base, he\u2019ll no doubt consider it a win for equality.<\/p>\n