New York City Council leaders are growing increasingly anxious that this year’s municipal budget will be late as negotiations with Mayor Adams have grounded to an “intractable” halt on a number of key issues, including education and library funding, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
By law, the mayor and the Council must reach an agreement by June 30 on a budget for the 2025 fiscal year to finance the various public services the city provides, including everything from policing and sanitation to education and homeless shelters.
But the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Daily News that Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ Democratic leadership team informed members in a private meeting Tuesday they’re concerned they won’t have a deal in place by the deadline.
Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, the Council’s Finance Committee chairman and lead budget negotiator, acknowledged the lack of progress in a statement to The News.
“We’ve got about a week to go and we’re still miles apart,” he said.
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Scott Heins/Getty Images City Councilman Justin Brannan (Scott Heins/Getty Images)
A mayoral spokeswoman declined to comment. “We’re going to be all right,” the mayor told reporters Monday when asked about the budget.
The two sides remain at loggerheads because the Council’s digging in its heels on a push to avert various spending cuts the mayor has enacted or proposed, the sources said.
One of the Council’s top priorities in this year’s talks with the mayor has been reversing a $58.3 million cut to the city’s three public library systems that forced them last year to end seven-day service at their branches. Another priority has been to restore $55 million in funding for local cultural institutions, and while the mayor agreed earlier this year to undo $7.6 million of that decrease, the rest of the deficit remains.
Council Dems have also pressed for undoing cuts ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars floated by the mayor to a variety of city services that includes the popular pre-K and 3K programs, a home-delivered meals initiative for seniors and a community composting effort.
But one of the Council sources said Tuesday there has been “practically no movement” from the mayor’s team on the outstanding Council priorities. A Council member involved in negotiations described the current state of the talks as an “intractable stalemate.”
If a deal isn’t hammered out by June 30, spending levels from the 2024 fiscal year budget stay in place until a new budget deal is reached. Keeping the 2024 fiscal year levels likely wouldn’t upset Council Dems, as they’re pushing for just that on many fronts in this year’s negotiations.
However, sources said some funding buckets could be jeopardized if the budget runs late. The city hasn’t failed to pass a budget on time in modern memory, and the prospect of a late plan comes as tensions between the Council and the mayor remain high following months of intense feuding between them over legislative priorities.
The mayor argues cuts he has enacted and proposed are necessary to offset expiring federal funding and billions of dollars in city spending on the local migrant crisis. Council Democrats counter their tax revenue projections show the city has enough money to both reverse cuts and care for migrants, a sentiment reiterated by Brannan on Tuesday.
“The blunt and unnecessary cuts we saw to education, housing, cultural institutions, libraries, parks, sanitation, public safety and seniors, all of it can and must be restored,” Brannan said.
