Mayor Eric Adams asks state lawmakers to offer the town one other $1.1 billion in migrant support after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate new funding. Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Pictures Workplace
On “Tin Cup Day,” Mayor Eric Adams begged the state for an additional $1.1 billion in migrant disaster support after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate any new funding for the inflow in her price range proposal final month.
Hizzoner, throughout his Feb. 4 testimony earlier than state lawmakers for “Tin Cup Day” (an annual convergence of native officers from across the state who come to Albany to foyer for his or her priorities), stated the town has already spent near $7 billion on housing and in any other case offering for over 200,000 new arrivals for almost three years. He added that his administration anticipates spending “billions more in the years to come.”
“While we appreciate the contribution the state has made, we know we have a gap of $1.1 billion budget shortfall from this program within 12 weeks we must fill,” Adams stated, referring to the time by which he should current his government price range proposal in late April.
In accordance with Adams’ price range director, Jacques Jiha, the $1.1 billion shortfall comes from the cash they assumed Hochul would doll out to the town her price range plan. Jiha factored that quantity into the mayor’s preliminary price range, which he introduced as balanced final month, solely to seek out out shortly afterward that Hochul didn’t plan on ponying up the funds.
“We budgeted for about a billion [dollars] of state aid that we would be receiving, but currently, the [state] budget doesn’t have any resources at all for asylum seekers,” Jiha stated.
Migrants at Floyd Bennett Subject in 2023.Picture by Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
Mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus stated Adams’ price range workplace assumed the governor would allocate that quantity to the town as a result of that’s what it has given in previous years.
“When we put out our budget, we said it was balanced, it was before the governor put out hers, and we were operating under the assumption that we would get the same amount that we did the previous cycle,” Mamelak Altus stated.
“If we do not get that money, then we’ll have to backfill it in other ways,” she added.
“When you do the budget, you do the budget with those things that you believe you’re going to get, and we’re going to go up now, you know, and fight for them,” Adams stated.
Nonetheless, Hochul allotted $2.4 billion in migrant support to the town final 12 months, far wanting the 50-50 cut up on newcomer prices that Adams had pushed for.
In the course of the listening to, Jiha stated the town continues to be submitting claims to get reimbursements from the state for the complete $2.4 billion allocation from final 12 months. He stated the town has gotten $1 billion again from the state up to now and has submitted claims for an additional $750 million.
Adams’ newest ask for state migrant support comes only some weeks after he took a victory lap in his preliminary price range rollout for decreasing new arrival spending.
On the time, he attributed the $2.4 billion in financial savings over this fiscal 12 months and the subsequent to his administration’s 30- and 60-day shelter limits for migrants. These insurance policies, mixed with restrictions on border crossings enacted final 12 months, have diminished the migrant inhabitants in metropolis shelters from its peak of 69,000 in late 2023 to 46,000.
