New York City Council Adopts the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

Budget restores and invest over $1 billion for full library service, cultural institutions, education programs, and parks; advances comprehensive plan and funding to fix early childhood education system; and adds $2 billion to create and preserve more affordable homes 

Speaker Adrienne Adams, Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan, and Members of the New York City Council voted today to adopt the $112.4 billion budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The FY 2025 budget restores and funds over $1 billion of the Council’s priorities following the Mayor’s Executive Budget, including for full library service, cultural institutions, school and student support programs, and a comprehensive plan to fund and fix the early childhood education (ECE) system. The ECE plan would provide funding to add seats and childcare vouchers for children without them, advance operational solutions to problems in the system that can fill vacant 3-K and Pre-K seats and strengthen it. The budget also secured the addition of $2 billion in capital funding over the next two years to support the creation and preservation of more affordable housing.  

The FY 2025 budget underscores the Council’s commitment to securing key restorations to preserve essential services that New Yorkers rely on and that allow for a safe and healthy City. The Council and the Administration were able to deliver a budget that preserves many critical programs and makes key investments, including replacing hundreds of millions of dollars in expiring federal stimulus funds.

“The Council is proud to adopt a city budget that restores and invests funding in New Yorkers’ priorities and the services that advance a healthier and safer city,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams. “These investments in affordable housing and homeownership, early childhood education and CUNY, libraries and cultural institutions, parks and sanitation, senior services and youth programs, mental health and public safety programs support our residents in every community. Despite the challenges, the Council has never wavered from our commitment to investing in solutions, and we will continue to push the City to meet the scale of our challenges. I thank my colleagues in the Council for our collective work to secure the resources our communities deserve and deliver on the priorities of New Yorkers.”

“Reports of New York City’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. But making sure New York City remains the Capital of the World is hard work and doesn’t happen on its own. That’s why what we invest in for the next 12 months matters,” said Council Member Justin Brannan, Chair of the Committee on Finance. “The city budget is arguably the most important document we produce every year. More than simply a financial plan and a list of expenditures, it is our city’s statement of values. It shows the rest of the world what the greatest city on the planet cares about. All throughout this year’s budget process, the Council was laser-focused on our shared priorities and confidence that we had the revenue needed to restore harmful cuts. Indeed, New York City’s post-pandemic economy has proved durable and resilient, buoyed by working and middle class New Yorkers – the very people we must invest in now. With an additional $2 billion secured through negotiations since the first draft, the FY25 adopted budget delivers on everything from early childhood education, our libraries, arts & cultural institutions to further addressing our city’s housing crisis, making investments in mental health programs and expanding Fair Fares so New Yorkers struggling to get by won’t need to choose between a MetroCard and a meal. This is a budget worthy of New Yorkers’ support.”

The Council was successful in securing restorations and investments of many priorities in a balanced FY 2025 budget, because of higher revenue projections and available resources that are consistent with the Council’s Executive Budget forecast. The FY 2025 budget also secures 65 Terms & Conditions and 11 Units of Appropriations to improve transparency of agency programs and functions.

Highlights of Council priorities added to the FY 2025 budget through negotiations include:

Increasing Budget Accountability and Transparency

Units of Appropriation:

The FY 2025 budget adopted 11 new Units of Appropriation (U/A) that were prioritized by the Council, including:

• One (1) in the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) – Promise NYC
• One (1) in the Department for the Aging (DFTA) – Home Delivery Meals
• One (1) in the Department of Corrections (DOC) – Training
• Two (2) in the Department of Education (DOE) – Division of Instructional and Information Technology
• Two (2) in the Department of Parks and Recreation – Parks Enforcement Patrol
• Four (4) in the New York Police Department – Chief of Department, Detective Bureau

The FY 2025 budget also takes steps to increase budget transparency by aligning 4 existing units of appropriation with agency functions. This is an important step in recognizing that units of appropriation are intended to be the building blocks of agency budgets and that they support distinct agency functions.

Terms and Conditions:

The FY 2025 budget adopted a record 65 Terms and Conditions, requirements that advance budget transparency. They include expanding the FY24 budget reporting on asylum response efforts as well as new Terms and Conditions reporting on critical issues such as:

• Early Childhood Education
• Carter Cases
• NYPD Strategic Response Group (SRG) deployment
• Unlicensed cannabis summonses and fines
• DYCD Crisis Management Systems (CMS) programs

A Strong Foundation for Housing New Yorkers

• $2 billion in new capital investments for affordable housing creation and preservation through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and NYCHA
• Full $6.8 million restoration for security guards at NYCHA senior buildings
• $4.2 million to support Department of City Planning PEG reversal and capital funding to enable neighborhood rezonings

Investments & Solutions to Fix Early Childhood Education System – $293 million

• The city’s early childhood education system has faced many operational challenges that have left the system underserving families. Its 3-K and Pre-K programs have recently consisted of thousands of vacant seats, while many families who apply do not receive seats, demonstrating an ineffective management of the resources to reach children and families. There has been insufficient outreach and marketing to ensure families are aware of their ECE options, pay disparities for staff at community-based organization (CBO) providers, overdue contract payments to CBO providers, and insufficient enrollment and contracting flexibility that allows programs to meet families’ needs.
• The Council recognized the need to secure funding for the early childhood education system that was missing in the Mayor’s Executive Budget and to negotiate for a comprehensive approach to fix the system’s challenges that leave it underutilized and some families without access.    
• To effectively tackle current deficiencies in the early childhood education system, the Council reached a comprehensive agreement to immediately fund seats for families still awaiting 3-K placements or on waiting lists for preschool special education, and to implement other reforms that address problems in the system so families can access seats. These include:
  • 3-K and Pre-K Seats: $112 million – $92 million to replace expiring federal stimulus funds and $20 million to add seats to ensure placements for families who did not receive placements for next school year;
  • Extended Day/Extended Year Seats: $40 million to convert over 4,000 school-day/school-year seats to full-day/full-year seats ($15 million baselined in FY 24 plus $25 million added in new funding at adoption);
  • Marketing and Outreach: Added $5 million to reestablish expanded marketing and outreach efforts for 3-K that make families aware of their ECE options, so the number of applications for seats no longer falls short of the number of budgeted seats;
  • Pre-School Special Education: Added $111 million, including $55 million to add seats and services for children on the waitlist;
  • Promise NYC Program: Added $25 million to maintain and expand access to the only childcare program for undocumented families that are ineligible for other programs.
• The agreement also establishes a working group to enact reforms that can fix and strengthen the ECE system for expansion and universal utilization by working on solutions to: fill vacant seats; ensure the geographic location and types of seats meet families’ needs and reach their children; and improve the enrollment process, outreach, and on-time provider payments. The Council’s goal is to increase utilization, solve operational challenges, and advance the system towards true universal access based on enrollment rather than simply budgeted seats.

Schools and Student Support Programs – $400.2 million

• Holding School Budgets Harmless: $75 million
• Summer Rising Restoration: $19.6 million
• School Food Staffing: $20 million
• Teacher Recruitment: $10 million
• Full restoration of funding for Community Schools: $70 million, including $56 million in the Executive Budget and $14 million at Adoption
• School Based Social Workers, School Psychologists, Family Workers Stimulus Cliff Restorations: $74 million
• Learning to Work: $31 million
• Ensuring placement of Certified Art Teachers in schools ($41 million) and Arts Education ($4 million)
• Shelter-Based Community Coordinators for Students in Temporary Housing: $17 million restoration
• Restorative Justice: $12 million restoration
• Mental Health Continuum: $5 million restoration
• Digital Learning, Computer for All, Tutoring, Civics for All, Parent and Immigrant Family Engagement, Outward Bound Crew Model: $21.6 million

City University of New York Programs & System – $64.2 million

• Operational Support Restoration: $15 million
• CUNY Reconnect: $5.9 million
• CUNY Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE): $10.1 million total ($1 million as outlined in the Executive Budget, and an additional $9.1 million at adoption
• CUNY ASAP for All: $4.5 million
• CUNY Social Work Fellows: $500,000

Health and Community Safety – $65.1 million

• Recidivism Reduction and Reentry Programs Restoration: $14.8 million
• Jail Population Review Teams: $10 million
• Civilian Complaint Review Board Baselined Enhancement: $2.1 million
• Justice Involved Supportive Housing: $6.4 million
• Trauma Recovery Centers Enhancement: $4.8 million
• Mental Health Clubhouses: $2 million
• Capital Funding for New Trauma Center in the Rockaways: $25 million
• HIV/AIDS Services Baselined Restoration: $5.4 million
• Community-Based Solutions for Violence Interruption: $8.6 million

Institutional Pillars of NYC Neighborhoods – $173.8 million

• $60.6 million full restoration of cultural institutions funding with $7.6 million restoration in Executive Budget and $53 million restored ($13 million baselined) at adoption
• $58.3 million to fully restore library funding, with $42.6 million baselined, for full service that is no longer repeatedly at risk year-to-year in future budgets
• Sanitation Litter Basket Pickup: $25 million restoration and enhancement
• $6.2 million restoration of Community Composting Program
• $15 million to enhance and restore funding for Second Shift maintenance and cleaning positions at hot spots in city parks
• Restoring $8.7 million to support Urban Park Rangers, Tree Stump Removal, and Green Thumb Restoration

Opportunity Programs and Essential Services – $1.428 billion

• Expanding Fair Fares to More Low-Income New Yorkers: $10.7 million to increase eligibility from 120% to 145% of the Federal Poverty Level, and an additional $2 million dedicated to outreach and education to increase utilization
• Restoration of Community Food Connection Program: $31.9 million
• Immigration Legal Services Enhancement Restoration: $4.4 million
• CityFHEPS: $614.9 million, with $540.3 million baselined beginning in FY26
• Restoration of Adult Literacy Programs: $10 million
• Community Interpreter Bank and Language Services Worker Cooperatives Restoration: $3.8 million
• Human Services Workers Cost of Living Adjustments: $740.6 million over four years
• Shelter to Housing Action Plan: $10.1 million
• Runaway and Homeless Youth Housing Navigators: $1.6 million