Mayor Eric Adams announces sweeping budget cuts that would drop number of police officers to lowest since 1990s
NEW YORK -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams unveiled his first round of budget cuts on Thursday. He wasn't kidding when he said they'd be painful.
Five percent cuts across the board will effect every city agency. Sanitation programs and schools will feel the pinch, but the most dramatic effect will be on public safety and the NYPD.
Adams, a former NYPD captain was elected in part on his promise to cut crime and make the streets safe again.
It's ironic that while every agency is taking a hit, his cuts will drop the number of cops patrolling the streets to the lowest number since the 1990s.
"This is the most painful exercise I've ever done in my professional life," said Adams.
The mayor made the frank admission as he hosted a town hall for older adults at the Hudson Guild.
It came minutes after his budget director admitted in a briefing the need for belt-tightening, to deal with a $7 billion budget gap caused in part by the asylum seeker crisis and the reduction in federal aid for COVID, would force the city to stop hiring cops for the foreseeable future.
The budget director said the next five classes at the police academy will be canceled and the number of cops is expected to drop from 33,541 to about 29,000 in the fiscal year starting July 2024. That's the lowest number of cops since the 1990s, he said.
Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry was stunned. He said the cuts could kill 30 years of public safety progress.
"This is truly a disaster for every New Yorker who cares about safe streets. Cops are already stretched to our breaking point, and these cuts will return us to staffing levels we haven't seen since the crime epidemic of the '80s and '90s. We cannot go back there. We need every level of government to work together to find a way to support police officers and protect New York City's thirty years of public safety progress," Hendry told CBS New York in a statement.
On Wednesday, CBS New York's Maurice DuBois and Kristine Johnson pressed Adams on whether the budget cuts would impact public safety and if police academy classes would be frozen.
"I am not going to do anything that's going to impact public safety in this city, I've made that clear over and over again," Adams said.
Details of many of the cuts remain sketchy.
The United Federation of Teachers said 653 schools, or 43% of the school system, would be hit with mid-year budget cuts.
"I've never seen a mayor saying we're doing cuts when the revenue is up. We're past the revenue projections, taxes are coming in, they're making a fortune off of speed cameras," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union. "I just think this is fabricated for some sort of political drama. I really do not understand this. I've never seen this situation, ever, in my entire time in this job."
The Department of Education said there would be a $120 million cut to pre-K and 3-K programs, and an undetermined number of the 37,000 vacant slots will be left unfilled.
There will be fewer litter baskets, a $5.5 million cut will be felt more in the outer boroughs and residential areas. There are also cuts to sanitation programs to clean pedestrian areas, greenways, empty lots and other areas.
Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, head of the City Council Finance Committee, said lawmakers would work hard to find ways to roll back the cuts.
"The City Council is not going to allow for the mayor to make cuts to essential city services that New Yorkers rely on and depend on. Whether that's keeping the city safe, whether that's keeping our streets clean, whether it's making sure that people's food stamps get processed, these are just lifelines that we're not going to allow to be cut," said Brannan.
Brannan said the Council will start holding hearings on the city's reliance on expensive hotels to house migrants and whether there is a better way going forward.
Like the mayor, he called on the state and federal government to provide more assistance.