Mayor Adams Delivers Testimony To New York State Senate Finance And Assembly Ways And Means Committe

February 15, 2023

NEW YORK – New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams today furnished testimony to the New York Point out Senate Finance and Assembly Methods and Implies Committees, focusing on crucial investments in careers, protection, housing, and treatment as perfectly as fiscal troubles facing the city.

Below are Mayor Adams’ remarks as geared up for delivery:

Fantastic morning, and thank you Chairs Krueger and Weinstein Neighborhood Government Chairs Martinez and Thiele Cities Chairs Sepulveda, May perhaps, and Braunstein and members of the Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees.

I am Eric Adams, and I am honored to surface right before you currently as the 110th mayor of the excellent town of New York. I am joined by Jacques Jiha, director of our Business office of Management and Spending budget Sheena Wright, initial deputy mayor Tiffany Raspberry, director of intergovernmental and external affairs Diane Savino, senior advisor to the main advisor and Chief Counsel Brendan McGuire.

Just before talking about the governor’s govt funds and my eyesight for the town of New York, I want to thank you for partnering with me last calendar year to deliver results for the persons of New York. Thanks to your leadership, we recognized the NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] Trust, prolonged our pace camera software, doubled the M/WBE [minority- and women-owned business enterprise] spending threshold for New York Town, and provided genuine relief to New Yorkers via the Earned Money Tax Credit score and sizeable youngster treatment investments.

I also want to thank the governor for like a lot of of our crucial priorities in this budget, like critical parts of our shared “New” New York strategy. We are very delighted with the governor’s motivation to funding a new era of economical housing. And we know her proposed public basic safety alterations will make New York safer. We also recognize the help this spending budget has supplied to assistance us handle New York’s mental health crisis.

But when the government budget is made up of several shared priorities, the cuts and charge shifts considerably outweigh the assistance the state is providing to deal with the asylum seeker crisis. The impacts of these cuts and expense shifts are most pronounced in three areas: Our schools, general public transit, and Medicaid. If unaddressed, these cuts will force us to make difficult options in regard to the town budget and the services that we present.

Governor Hochul and leaders in the Senate and Assembly have been great companions to the metropolis and our administration. My hope, and my belief, is that we’ll be in a position to type out our variations and function collectively to construct a price range that is effective for all New Yorkers.

In my Condition of the Metropolis handle, I laid out my vision for the metropolis, centered all around four pillars of supportive government: Positions, safety, housing, and care.

By such as local community employing and growing the M/WBE modest buy threshold in her budget, the governor is providing us the tools we require to dismantle inequality when also investing in careers of the foreseeable future.

But we know that all good work opportunities are created on a typical foundation: A solid education and learning. On that note, I would like to thank the governor for continuing the period-in of Basis Aid in her govt budget proposal.

But, if the state raises the charter cap as proposed, we will will need additional sources. We believe it will cost us in excess of $1 billion pounds to internet site these educational facilities and include the required for every-college student tuition — revenue we do not have.

Past 12 months, the point out handed laws necessitating New York Town to cut down course sizes, devoid of offering additional funding to develop educational institutions and employ the service of teachers. The demands of this new regulation will charge the town $1.3 billion by 12 months five. We need to have the state to give funding to make certain that our little ones get the education they are worthy of.

My second pillar is community protection.

The governor’s price range rightfully proposes to hold us safer by offering us further resources to handle our recidivist crises. Variations to the least restrictive regular, as the governor has proposed, will go a extended way in the direction of resolving our recidivist dilemma. This is essential for the reason that a disproportionate share of the critical criminal offense in New York City is getting pushed by a restricted number of serious recidivists — somewhere around 2,000 men and women — who dedicate criminal offense soon after crime when out on the avenue on bail.

We should also acknowledge that our city’s district attorneys and public defenders are confused and need to have our help straight away. The condition ought to make a main financial investment in them now or hazard depriving defendants of their constitutional ideal to a speedy demo — delaying justice for victims and continuing the unprecedented level of attrition inside each of these workplaces.

My third pillar is housing.

No matter whether you had been born right here or arrived here trying to find opportunity, we need you, and you have to have cost-effective housing.

Importantly, the governor has provided provisions that would facilitate the conversion of workplace space into housing, eradicate the floor-area ratio cap to allow for a lot more housing, implement the J-51 tax incentive to preserve our housing inventory, and tax incentive plans that push the construction of new reasonably priced models.

My remaining pillar is care.

Nationwide and international developments usually converge to build urgent and unexpected wants in our town, this kind of as the ongoing asylum seeker disaster. We are at the breaking level.

Governor Hochul has identified the magnitude of this crisis and has available point out guidance for our expanding fees. But with the metropolis anticipated to commit above $4 billion on this crisis by the middle of next year, we’ll require more than the roughly $1.2 billion in point out and federal resources we imagine will arrive our way.

I would like to point out a several other critical merchandise that the Governor integrated in her funds.

We respect the authorization of added instruments that will let us to build large tasks a lot quicker and smarter, while raising options for M/WBEs on metropolis development jobs.

In addition, we are happy with the inclusion of New York Metropolis Parking Reform, which will allow us to hold our streets obvious of industrial automobiles to the profit of our family members.

We also recognize the inclusion of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, which will keep suppliers and major companies accountable for the squander they create whilst doing company.

Though the governor’s price range involves many welcome investments in our metropolis, there are noteworthy cuts and charge shifts that will depart the city with no option but to choose quite severe measures in our upcoming metropolis budget.

The very first of these has to do with the city’s MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] contributions. At the outset, we will need to spotlight what the metropolis authorities already contributes on an yearly basis — $2.4 billion in immediate and in-form contributions, and which is in addition to the the vast majority of the state’s tax income that New York City people, personnel, and corporations send to Albany each and every year.

This govt price range proposes new contributions from New York Metropolis that would charge $526 million in the upcoming fiscal calendar year and a lot more than $540 million each individual yr outside of that. Apart from the amplified Payroll Mobility Tax contribution that all localities in the MTA services space must pay, New York City is the only locality that has been asked to improve its contribution — and by hundreds of thousands and thousands of dollars for every yr.

We all want what’s greatest for riders, but we have to have a fairer and a lot more sustainable proposal. This present proposal hits New Yorkers 2 times — after via the bigger fares that riders will nevertheless encounter and the moment by way of diminished services shipping and delivery by their nearby governing administration, which will have at least half a billion bucks each yr heading to subsidize a condition-run authority.

In addition, the governor’s fiscal program proposes cuts to Medicaid aid by preserving 100 per cent of increased Federal Clinical Help Proportion (or “eFMAP”) funding to localities. That will be $343 million taken out of our spending budget commencing in Fiscal Year 2024, which would conclusion a longstanding expense sharing arrangement given that 2015. This would properly transfer prices from the state to localities — undoing just one of the a lot more important Medicaid reforms in the latest heritage.

An additional cost the city is remaining questioned to fund is the court-mandated wage raises for 18-B attorneys, which amplified from $75 to $158 per hour. At this time, we split this value approximately evenly with the point out, but, devoid of state motion, the metropolis will be compelled to include the full expense of this boost. This will expense us $84 million each year, commencing in Fiscal Calendar year 2023.

Lastly, a recurring minimize enacted a few several years ago proceeds to pressure the city’s finances. We inquire that the state discontinue the sales tax intercept for the distressed hospitals fund. One hundred and fifty million pounds of the city’s tax revenues are intercepted yearly for this fund, and New York Town is the only locality paying out. Irrespective of this, not a solitary H+H [NYC Health + Hospitals] healthcare facility has obtained a greenback of guidance.

In summary, the governor’s price range and economic program imposes new prerequisites on the city that we are unable to assistance.

The governor’s funds contains over $1 billion in new cuts and price shifts to the town commencing in Fiscal Year 2024. The new MTA prerequisites and Medicaid cuts on your own are large and far more than cancel out all the proposals in this spending plan that gain the metropolis, primarily due to the fact those new expenses would be lasting and once-a-year.

The town are not able to potentially have the fat of these types of massive commitments without the need of slicing important courses that help New Yorkers.

This is not a menace. This is math.

And as I have been indicating from the starting, the potential of New York Town and New York state are connected. If cuts from the condition negatively impression our price range, the outcomes will be felt at the state level as very well. 

Yet again, enable me say that Governor Hochul has been a great husband or wife to us. I feel we can bridge our dissimilarities below and, collectively with you and your colleagues, do what is proper for the condition. 

Thank you once again for inviting us today and for using the time to talk about my plans for the city. We glance ahead to operating together carefully to build a finances that uplifts and benefits all New Yorkers.