{"id":282551,"date":"2026-06-30T18:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282551\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:10:09","slug":"mamdani-and-city-council-agree-on-126-billion-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282551\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani and City Council Agree on $126 Billion Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

After days of backbiting rancor<\/a>, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the speaker of the City Council settled the first budget of their respective tenures, a $126 billion spending plan that resolves yearslong litigation over a rental assistance program whose parabolic cost growth caused widespread alarm.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani and the Council speaker, Julie Menin, Democrats who have often operated as political adversaries, fought until the final hours over how to handle the ballooning costs of the city-funded program that provides rental assistance, known by the ungainly name CityFHEPS.<\/p>\n

In reaching an agreement that expands eligibility for the rental vouchers \u2014 by establishing a new program to administer them \u2014 the two sides agreed to end the litigation, even as the city\u2019s housing crisis continues.<\/p>\n

At a news conference on Tuesday morning, Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Menin were all smiles and affectionate handshakes, as the mayor declared the budget a reflection of \u201cgovernment excellence\u201d and Ms. Menin argued it would \u201cmeaningfully tackle the affordability crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Council must now vote on the deal, which takes effect on Wednesday \u2014 the statutory day when a new budget must be in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout this process I have been reminded of the words of the Austrian economist, Friedrich Hayek, \u2018if socialists understood economics, they wouldn\u2019t be socialists,\u2019\u201d said Mr. Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor. \u201cIf these past months have shown us anything, it is that socialists not only understand economics just as well as the capitalists who came before, but that we can solve their years of mismanagement through an embrace of our principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The budget deal also includes money to expand Fair Fares, a discounted transit fare program<\/a> that was, like the expansion of CityFHEPS, a Council priority. Mr. Mamdani said he remained committed to finding a way to fund free buses, a core campaign promise.<\/p>\n

Ms. Menin also won City Hall\u2019s support for an expansion of a program called NYC Kids Rise, a $53 million commitment to put $1,000 into a college savings fund for every public school kindergarten student in the city.<\/p>\n

But one controversial element of the budget was eliminated, when Mr. Mamdani backtracked on his plan for an additional 580 police officers, in part to enhance security in the Bronx. The proposal to add police officers was a flip-flop of his campaign stance to freeze the police head count, and his reversal had angered some of Mr. Mamdani\u2019s democratic socialist base<\/a>, which made the rare move of publicly criticizing him over his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommissioner Tisch and I were able to identify ways to keep the N.Y.P.D. head count at the originally authorized 35,000, while also meeting all of our crime-fighting needs,\u201d Mr. Mamdani said on Tuesday, referring to Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Ms. Tisch\u2019s press team said, \u201cFor now, the department is able to police effectively with the budgeted head count we have, driving crime down month after month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vocal-NY, an organization that advocates for low-income people, praised both City Hall and the Council for eliminating the new police officer positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes strong leadership for the mayor to hear vociferous criticism on this issue and to consider and respond to it,\u201d the group said in a statement. \u201cToday Mayor Mamdani did just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new voucher program is expected to serve an additional 5,600 households, or about 14,000 New Yorkers, according to the mayor\u2019s office. Still, a major crisis persists: Nearly 100,000 New Yorkers remain<\/a> in city shelters, close to one-third of them are children. The existing CityFHEPS serves<\/a> about 67,000 households.<\/p>\n

The new program is not an entitlement like the existing one, but it will serve people in homeless shelters as well as rent-regulated tenants facing eviction. Unlike the existing program, this one will not feature work requirements. Some officials worry that the new program may create self-defeating competition between existing renters and homeless shelter tenants for an extremely limited supply of vacant apartments.<\/p>\n

Because it is not an entitlement, the new program\u2019s budget is capped.<\/p>\n

City Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a Democrat from the Bronx, led the push for more funding<\/a> for housing vouchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not exactly where we wanted to end up; we wanted a bigger size of this program to start,\u201d Ms. Sanchez said, even as she applauded the new voucher program. She said the new system would expand eligibility for people based on income and added, \u201cWe live to fight another day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani had promised on the campaign trail to expand<\/a> the voucher program far more than he ended up doing on Tuesday. Asked about his longer-term plan for dealing with the homelessness crisis, Mr. Mamdani pointed to his \u201ccomprehensive\u201d efforts to make New York City more affordable, from building more housing to the Fair Fares expansion.<\/p>\n

The budget negotiations surrounding the housing vouchers happened in concert with efforts to settle ongoing litigation surrounding the program. In 2023, the City Council voted to expand the program, so that it would serve not just those in homeless shelters, but also renters facing eviction. Former Mayor Eric Adams proceeded to veto the legislation, citing concerns about the program\u2019s exploding costs.<\/p>\n

The council overrode his veto, only for Mr. Adams to refuse to enforce the laws. The Council sued.<\/p>\n

Between 2019 and 2026, the program\u2019s cost<\/a> has grown to $1.7 billion from $25 million, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.<\/p>\n

While the original FHEPS entitlement program was crafted in concert with the state, as the City Charter mandates, the expansion was not, according to Legal Aid and a senior city official. The settlement replaces the 2023 laws and affirms that state approval is required for the creation of entitlement programs.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Andrew Rein, the commission\u2019s president, praised the city\u2019s new housing voucher program, because he argued its costs would escalate in a far less dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring FHEPS is not an entitlement is key to controlling spending growth,\u201d Mr. Rein said.<\/p>\n

But he issued a broader warning about the spending plan, saying the city \u201chas a huge structural budget problem. Unfortunately, this budget fails to solve it.\u201d The mayor and speaker closed the budget gap \u201cwith one-shots, short-term savings and cost shifts to future taxpayers,\u201d Mr. Rein added, \u201cleaving the city to face a gaping hole next year and undue stress in the years after.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Council\u2019s Progressive Caucus chairs issued a statement calling the rental voucher expansion \u201ca massive win for our housing insecure neighbors\u201d and pledged to build on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooming fiscal cliffs, an unfair cost-sharing status quo between the city and state, our regressive tax code and federal budget cuts remain a serious concern for our members,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After days of backbiting rancor, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the speaker of the City Council settled the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5286,1910,49713,651,84267,1445,84266,9,24,55,54,56,1671,13995,88248,1446],"class_list":["post-282551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-budgets-and-budgeting","tag-city-council-nyc","tag-cost-of-living-and-affordability","tag-democratic-party","tag-julie","tag-mamdani","tag-menin","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-politics-and-government","tag-rent-control-and-stabilization","tag-vouchers","tag-zohran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282551","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=282551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}