Mayor Zohran Mamdani boasted Tuesday that he plugged the city\u2019s multibillion-dollar budget gap for the coming fiscal year \u2014 but it\u2019s only \u201cbalanced\u201d with gimmicks that guarantee oceans more red ink in the years ahead.<\/p>\n
With a late assist from Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s own flim-flammery, the new, $124.7 billion Mamdani spending plan relies on one-time cash infusions, postponed payments and dubious calculations of future tax windfalls and theoretical savings.<\/p>\n
The day began with Hochul boldly announcing<\/a> yet another of her trademark cave-ins: After weeks of insisting she\u2019d given the mayor as much help as she could, the gov magically found another $4 billion for him just hours before he presented his plan.<\/p>\n Yet half the windfall comes down to new debt, much of the rest is pretty vaporous \u2014 and all of it amounts to just telling the spending addict he can keep on shooting up.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s plan, warns city Comptroller Mark Levine, \u201crelies on $2.8 billion in one-time measures\u201d and short-term savings, without addressing \u201cthe fact that\u00a0City\u00a0government continues to spend more than we take in, even in a year of record revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n Record revenues, but not enough for Zoh.<\/p>\n State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli likewise warned that the \u201cfiscal stresses\u201d built into this budget will \u201crequire proactive steps to achieve budget balance\u201d in coming years.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s $4 billion line of credit, in other words, will simply let Mamdani spend more now, and worry later about paying it off.<\/p>\n The hard revenues here center on the still-not-finalized pied-\u00e0-terre tax<\/a> surcharge, which not only has negative side effects like depressing property values and pushing high earners to move away, but also likely won\u2019t bring in the in $500 million a year that Hochul and Mamdani claim.<\/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 Levine, the green-eyeshades guy, pegs the take<\/a> at as little as $340 million.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s \u201cgifts\u201d also includes an OK to delay $2.3 billion in payments<\/a> to fully fund the city pension funds.<\/p>\n That \u201cgimmick,\u201d warns Citizens Budget Commission President Andrew Rein, simply forces \u201cfuture New Yorkers to pay our bills\u201d (though he credits the gov for holding \u201cthe line on personal income and business taxes\u201d).<\/p>\n One true positive in Hochul\u2019s package: Getting the Legislature\u2019s agreement to let the class-size law phase in<\/a> more slowly, saving the city $500 million this year.<\/p>\n