Statement from NYC Comptroller Lander on New York City and State FY25 Budget Proposals

 

Following the release of Mayor Eric Adams’ and Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposals for the New York City and State Fiscal Year 2025 budgets, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander issued the following statement: 

“New York City and State face meaningful challenges in the FY 2025 budgets. With stronger coordination and management, we can close out-year budget gaps without cuts to essential services, address the housing affordability crisis, enable asylum seekers to obtain work authorization and jobs so they can move out of shelter, and set New York on strong economic footing for the years ahead.    

“The fact that both City and State revenues are coming in higher than anticipated reflects the solid recovery of New York’s economy. However, addressing the housing affordability crisis is essential for New York’s future. The Governor laid out an agenda to increase housing supply, offer a pathway to legalizing basement apartments, and enable office conversions to residential units – efforts I support. But getting to a deal in Albany will require not only expanding supply, but also strengthening tenant protections, and providing vouchers for low-income and homeless families at a time of record-high homelessness. At the City level, we need to provide adequate resources to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, who lost critical expertise and capacity during the pandemic, so the agency can more rapidly underwrite affordable deals and process housing applications. 

“More effective coordination is also needed to rise to the challenge of enabling asylum seekers to get work authorization and jobs, so they can move out of shelter and begin contributing to New York’s economic and cultural success as immigrants have generation-after-generation. I was encouraged to see that Governor Hochul’s budget includes meaningful new funding for asylum seekers, especially much needed legal services and case management to enable asylum seekers to file their applications, obtain work authorization, get jobs, and land on their feet – although it appears initially that the State’s commitment will still fall short of the originally promised one-third of the total asylum seeker costs.  

“Even with additional State funding for asylum seekers, the City needs to do a far better job of managing costs, negotiating down per diem rates at hotels, and moving from emergency procurement to RFPs and bids that better addressing vendor integrity and price. In a city whose tax revenues increased by $2.9 billion since the November plan, we simply do not need to be evicting immigrant families from shelter in the middle of winter.  

“I was pleased to see that the Mayor increased funding to address some of the fiscal cliffs that my office has previously identified, and that City Hall is not proposing to tap into long-term reserves. Other long-term budget issues, like the growing cost of uniformed overtime and claims against the City, remain unaddressed. While I was grateful to see key programs like Summer Rising and sanitation services restored, critical services, such as CUNY, still face painful cuts, and agency vacancies and attrition continue to jeopardize key City capacities. 

“I look forward to digging into the details of both the City and State budgets and present detailed analyses in the coming weeks.”