Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday unveiled a $98.5 billion budget for fiscal 2023 — a slight shrinkage of overall city spending by $200 million that he claims will result in $2 billion in savings.
During a speech from City Hall, Adams decried “decades of inefficiency and wasteful spending” and said he’d “taken the very first steps to turn this city around” with his first spending plan.
“Fiscal discipline will be a hallmark of my administration,” he said.
Adams said his budget would provide the city with $6.1 billion in reserves, the largest in history.
“This is the result of effective planning and judicious management, and New Yorkers can be confident that we have the resources for recovery, as well as for any uncertainties that may lie ahead of us,” he said.
Adams also said that his “Program to Eliminate the Gap,” which calls for 3 percent cuts to most city agencies, had cut planned spending by almost $2 billion.
Prior to his announcement, it was unclear if those cuts would extend to the NYPD amid a surge in crime and gun violence.
Adams didn’t address the issue of NYPD funding during his speech, saying only that “The NYPD is our first line of defense against gun violence.”
“We will make new efforts to strengthen and reinforce it, while continuing our mission to involve the community,” he said.
But during a Q&A with reporters afterward, Adams, a former NYPD captain, said spending on the city’s cops would be “basically flat.”
“There may be a slight decrease in the next few months, but it’s basically going to be flat,” he said.
“I’m not going to do anything that’s going to get in the way of keeping New Yorkers safe.”
If adopted as proposed, which is historically unlikely, Adams’ budget would mark the first decrease in annual city spending since 2009, according to information compiled by the Independent Budget Office.