On the eve of the budget deadline, Mayor Mamdani and Council Speaker Julie Menin still had not reached a handshake deal on the city budget.
The city’s budget, unlike the state’s, is rarely late. But the talks have hit a roadblock on CityFHEPS, the city’s housing voucher program, which allows recipients to pay about a third of their income toward rent, with the city paying the rest.
The spending plan is due by the end of the day Tuesday.
The Mamdani administration over the weekend offered to add $175 million in funding this year — $25 million short of the minimum number the Council was asking for, sources familiar with the budget talks told the Daily News.
“We are working around the clock to deliver a budget agreement that is fiscally responsible and puts our city on a path of long-term stability,” Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for Mamdani, said in a statement. “The mayor believes in CityFHEPS and keeping New Yorkers stably housed, which is precisely why we are pursuing major reforms to the program.”
City Comptroller Mark Levine pushed Mayor Mamdani and the City Council to secure a deal.
“With the deadline fast approaching, I urge the Mayor and City Council to reach an agreement as soon as possible to prevent the potential downsides of a late budget,” Levine said in a statement. “In doing so, it is critical that they avoid adding to the already large out-year gaps ahead.”
The handshake deal kicks off a long bureaucratic process where the budget bills must be printed and then voted on.
The deal was originally expected on Friday, but Council Speaker Julie Menin canceled after the administration didn’t dole out more money for CityFHEPS.
The program posed a massive political problem for Mamdani, who’s been criticized by both his allies and opponents for his stance.
The mayor on the campaign trail vowed to follow through with an expansion of the program that was made law by the Council in 2023.
But once he became mayor, Mamdani reversed on the issue. He argued that the expansion of the program is too expensive for the city to handle. He’s continued the legal challenge to the program started under ex-Mayor Adams, seeking to delay the expansion. The Council is now seeking a settlement.
Councilmembers upped public pressure on the mayor to grant them the funding over the past several days, including a social media blitz on Saturday evening. A slate of progressive lawmakers, who are typically aligned with the mayor, vowed to vote no on the budget if Mamdani didn’t add a significant chunk of money for the program. And Menin, alongside councilmembers and advocates, hosted a rally to push for the funding on Friday.
The budget is also expected to include additional funding for Fair Fares and NYC Kids RISE, a college savings plan program, sources told The News.
In an earlier budget plan, the mayor sounded the alarm on a multi-billion-dollar budget gap, arguing the only way out was with hiking taxes on the rich or raising property taxes — a proposal the City Council quickly shut down. But Mamdani walked estimates of the gap down as he included Wall Street revenues for the year, savings measures and state aid, and a pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes.
Mamdani balanced the $124.7 billion city budget in his executive plan without hiking property taxes or drawing down from the city’s rainy day fund.
The city also stands to face future budget gaps of over $7 billion next year and over $9 billion the year after, per City Hall’s numbers. Those outyear gaps suggest that, while the mayor has balanced the books this year, he could again face a difficult budget situation next year.
