here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cAmid a serious affordability crisis impacting New Yorkers across the city, the Council has a responsibility to act as a strong fiscal steward as we face a significant budget shortfall,\u201d City Council speaker Julie Menin said.\u00a0\u201cWe cannot in good conscience fund the City\u2019s needs on the backs of homeowners or renters, by digging into emergency reserves, or by cutting essential programs. Our response offers a clear alternative to taking those steps, puts the\u00a0City back on stable footing and\u00a0invests directly in New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Programs and services that the City Council aims to use the budget for include: <\/p>\n
$30 million\u00a0for cultural institutions to provide necessary organizational support to the cultural community<\/p>\n
$30.7 million\u00a0to support the three library systems\u2019 operations<\/p>\n
$16.9 million\u00a0for housing and domestic violence-related legal services<\/p>\n
$5 million\u00a0to provide for students\u2019 mental health needs<\/p>\n
$7.8 million\u00a0for CUNY Reconnect, a program providing services and resources to working-age adults who are pursuing their advanced degrees at CUNY<\/p>\n
The Council aimed its focus on three initial priorities for negotiations over the coming months, including the expansion of the college savings program\u00a0NYC Kids RISE,\u00a0to significantly grow the allotment of investment funds available for 5-year-olds. The additional funding would allow an initial investment of up to $1,000 for every public-school kindergartener and up to $3,000 for children with the greatest need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second priority is to expand the\u00a0Fair Fares\u00a0program to make subways and buses fully free for households under at least 150% of the federal poverty line, so that the lowest-income New Yorkers can count on accessing public transportation without economic strain. <\/p>\n
The program currently provides half-price fairs for these households. The Council is also looking at ways to increase Fair Fares enrollment, including through automatic enrollment.<\/p>\n
The third priority is achieving\u00a0increased wages for\u00a0paraprofessionals,\u00a0an issue that multiple councilmembers have supported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York City Council earlier this week released its response to Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Preliminary Budget proposal,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-183939","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-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183939","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=183939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}