There is no Spring Training for Mayors, a month into his tenure Mamdani faces a yawning deficit, yes, he inherited the deficit, it belongs to our new mayor.
In June, 2025 Mayor Adams (and City Council) passed a $114 B budget, restoring a long list of proposed cuts.
Seven months later the newly elected Comptroller, Mark Levine, announces current budget deficits and next year substantial deficits.
First time since the Great Recession that the City faces a budget shortfall of this magnitude this late in the fiscal year
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine announced that the City faces a $2.2 billion budget shortfall for FY2026 and a projected $10.4 billion gap for FY2027. This is the first time since the Great Recession that the City faces a budget shortfall of this magnitude this late in the fiscal year, presenting serious challenges for the City’s budget. [The] analysis expands upon data from December 2025, and as part of the assessment, Comptroller Levine cited the prior Mayoral administration’s budgeting practices as primary contributors to these gaps.
“As the state and city budget cycles begin, we find ourselves confronting a $2 billion deficit for the current fiscal year, and a $10 billion gap for the coming year. This wasn’t caused by a bad economy—it’s the result of budgeting decisions from the previous administration that we must now deal with,” said Comptroller Mark Levine. “In February, Mayor Mamdani and his administration will have the difficult responsibility of producing a balanced preliminary budget. I’m committed to working alongside Mayor Mamdani and leadership in Albany to ensure the City can make good on its financial obligations and deliver a balanced budget this year and next.”
The Mayor responded vigorously, acknowledging the fiscal challenges and blaming his predecessors,
The blame, Mr. Mamdani said during a news conference in City Hall’s Blue Room, was large enough to spread around.
“With a deadline for his first budget proposal looming, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday convened reporters to City Hall for a mayoral rite of passage: blaming his predecessor for the problems that lie ahead.
The problems stem from a projected $12 billion budget gap, presenting a sizable obstacle to Mr. Mamdani in fulfilling some of his campaign promises. He said the best solution was to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and to have the city receive an equitable share of state revenue.
“We will meet this crisis with the bold solutions it demands,” Mr. Mamdani said. “That means recalibrating the broken fiscal relationship between the state and the city, and it means that the time has come to tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations.”
He first unveiled a large image on a screen that read, “Adams Budget Crisis,” in all capital letters, a reference to his predecessor, Eric Adams. The mayor later faulted former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for shortchanging the city in state funds, saying that he “extracted our city’s resources” and created an imbalance that continues today.
But most of his finger-pointing was directed at Mr. Adams, whom he accused of handing “the next administration a poisoned chalice,” referring to the $12.6 billion budget deficit this year and next.Mr. Mamdani said the deficit — which would be the city’s largest since the 2008 fiscal crisis
Mamdani’s “Tax the Rich” policy is applauded by his Social Democrats bros, who don’t pass the laws. Laws are passed by the legislature and the governor and in an election year you don’t want a policy that chases away the richest. It’s a heavy lift in an election year. Yes, Mamdani’s army of volunteers knocking on doors may change minds with a state budget due April 1, tempus fugit.
And, there is this guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who decides whether $10B in fed $$ continues to flow to NYC.
Within the next few weeks the mayor will release his preliminary budget, very preliminary and, of course, the State budget will impact city funding,
How dire is the crisis? Will Mamdani have to slash city services? Layoffs? I received a few queries, “Are our pensions safe?”
It’s much too early in the process to project the fiscal future: if our national economy stumbles and we enter a recession: who knows? …
Today the Chancellor and his staff are testifying before the major players in the state legislature, I spent hours listening, no mention of an impending budget crisis. The legislators asked that the four year extension of mayoral control the governor placed in the preliminary budget be removed. The chancellor pushed back, “you only get accountability with mayoral control.” The Los Angeles school district has a salaried, elected school board and Chicago, which had a mayoral control school board is phasing back to an elected board.
Aside from Mamdani’s army there is another army: UFT members, active and retired, many deeply entrenched in local politics.
As far as pensions the NYS Constitution says no public employee pensions may be “diminished or impaired.”
Can the city declare bankruptcy to wash away debts? Extremely unlikely, Detroit did declare bankruptcy in 2013, read an excellent discussion here
Unfortunately the hours and hours of testimony revealed a new chancellor basically saying I’m going to do pretty much the same things, just do them better.
You’re probably depressed, so, to cheer you up, Raj Chetty and his team have the ability to sort through vast amounts of data and suggest solutions to critical issues, his latest, Building Pathways Out of Intergenerational Poverty in Cities,
Fascinating ..
Anyone close to Zohan?
Ed in the Apple: Blogging on the Intersection of Education and Politics Title 