The first budget for Mayor Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin, at loggerheads until the final hours over the skyrocketing costs of the CityFHEPS housing voucher program, smartly changed the vouchers from an entitlement with sharply rising monthly costs to a regularly budgeted appropriation. That should have been done years ago.
That wasn’t the only good outcome of the process, which started on the sour note of the rookie mayor’s histrionics over a phantom zillion dollar deficit caused by Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo (who left office a half decade ago) and personal attacks on Menin.
Mamdani, overly eager to win his twin campaign pledges of increasing the personal income tax on the top earners and a higher corporate tax rate, tried pressuring Gov. Hochul to raise taxes in an election year for her, a politically very dumb move. When that didn’t succeed, the mayor, in an act of desperation, threatened to take city homeowners hostage by saying there would have to be a 9.5% property tax hike unless Albany gave him what he wanted.
Hochul remained a firm no from the outset until the end and Mamdani, admitting a bad error, abandoned the embarrassing property tax hike foolishness.
We trust next year’s budget will be handled with a bit more finesse, as Mamdani has learned from the skilled experts he appointed, Budget Director Sherif Soliman and First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan.
The deal on CityFHEPS that Mamdani agreed to with Menin settles a lawsuit begun by the Council against Adams. Candidate Mamdani sided with the Council that the vouchers must be expanded. Once he moved into Gracie Mansion, Mayor Mamdani reversed himself and copied the Adams position that the expansion was far too costly. Now the matter is resolved, as the program will no longer have an open-ended access to city funds. Everyone seems to have come out satisfied, as there will be an expansion, but the budget won’t be busted.
Another positive outcome that the mayor at first resisted is augmenting the Fair Fares initiative of half price rides on the subway and buses. It makes much more sense than his campaign promise of fare-less buses, which did nothing for the far larger number of subway riders and this is also limited to New Yorkers at the lower end of the income scale. Why should the well off or the rich be getting a free ride?
Also on the plus side is adding a few hundred million to the rainy day fund.
There was an earlier agreement to hire 580 additional cops, in part to allow for the Bronx to be split into two borough commands, North and South, like the other large boroughs, but Mamdani said at the last minute he wasn’t going to add to the NYPD headcount. Still, the NYPD did get an extra $300 million in its budget, a chunk which was meant for the officers. So money for new cops, but no new cops?
An on-time and balanced budget is the standard for New York City, compared with the messy and late spectacles at the state and federal levels. A half century ago, when the city hovered at bankruptcy, it taught us the painful lessons of financial mismanagement. Ever since then mayors have behaved as responsible stewards of the city’s fiscal health.