$127 billion preliminary budget proposal<\/a> last month. Mamdani urged Albany lawmakers to increase income taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations. Mamdani said if that effort fails, the city would have to increase property taxes by 9.5%.<\/p>\nBut both options face tough odds. In Albany, Gov. Kathy Hochul has steadfastly opposed an income tax hike, arguing such a move would drive wealthy people out of the state.<\/p>\n
In the City Council, Speaker Julie Menin has called the property tax proposal a \u201cnonstarter.\u201d Many other members have also criticized the measure.<\/p>\n
Levine\u2019s office said the city faces a $6.5 billion gap next year, assuming neither option is adopted. That gap is worse than the Mamdani administration\u2019s projected gap, which it put at $5.4 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a structural imbalance that this reveals right in a year where the economy is growing, where revenue is growing, income tax, property tax, all growing,\u201d Levine warned.<\/p>\n
He also cautioned that Mamdani\u2019s proposed property tax increase approaches the ceiling of what\u2019s permissible under the state constitution. Levine cautioned that raising property taxes might be an option best saved for a graver economic moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re once again leaving ourselves without a tool we might want to use if there’s a true crisis ahead,\u201d Levine said.<\/p>\n
As one example of how the city\u2019s expenses were growing faster than its revenues, Levine cited the city\u2019s rental assistance program, which he said was expected to cost nearly $2.6 billion next year. That\u2019s more than the entire Department of Housing Preservation and Development\u2019s expense budget, which is currently just over $2 billion.<\/p>\n
Levine\u2019s analysis also warned of looming fiscal threats, including geopolitical instability, as well as the possibility of an artificial intelligence bubble in the stock market bursting, causing major job losses.<\/p>\n
The comptroller did praise the mayor for a budget that more accurately reflects the true cost of key programs.<\/p>\n
He said Mayor Eric Adams administration had underestimated expenses and \u201cpapered over\u201d structural problems. Mayors have long been criticized for playing games with preliminary budgets so they can later cast themselves as heroes saving the city from fiscal disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comptroller Mark Levine will offer a sobering assessment of the New York City’s fiscal health on Wednesday, warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-160122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}