Mayor Eric Adams asks state lawmakers to provide town one other $1.1 billion in migrant assist after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate new funding. Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace
On “Tin Cup Day,” Mayor Eric Adams begged the state for one more $1.1 billion in migrant disaster assist 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), mentioned 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 mentioned, 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 town her price range plan. Jiha factored that quantity into the mayor’s preliminary price range, which he offered as balanced final month, solely to search 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 mentioned.
Migrants at Floyd Bennett Subject in 2023.Picture by Spencer Platt/Getty Photographs
Mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus mentioned Adams’ price range workplace assumed the governor would allocate that quantity to 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 mentioned.
“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 mentioned.
Nevertheless, Hochul allotted $2.4 billion in migrant assist to town final yr, far in need of the 50-50 cut up on newcomer prices that Adams had pushed for.
In the course of the listening to, Jiha mentioned town continues to be submitting claims to get reimbursements from the state for the total $2.4 billion allocation from final yr. He mentioned town has gotten $1 billion again from the state to date and has submitted claims for one more $750 million.
Adams’ newest ask for state migrant assist comes just a few 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 yr and the following to his administration’s 30- and 60-day shelter limits for migrants. These insurance policies, mixed with restrictions on border crossings enacted final yr, have lowered the migrant inhabitants in metropolis shelters from its peak of 69,000 in late 2023 to 46,000.
