Mayor Eric Adams asks state lawmakers to supply city one different $1.1 billion in migrant help after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate new funding. Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Pictures Office
On “Tin Cup Day,” Mayor Eric Adams begged the state for another $1.1 billion in migrant catastrophe help after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate any new funding for the influx in her worth vary proposal ultimate month.
Hizzoner, all through his Feb. 4 testimony sooner than state lawmakers for “Tin Cup Day” (an annual convergence of native officers from throughout the state who come to Albany to lobby for his or her priorities), talked about city has already spent close to $7 billion on housing and in every other case providing for over 200,000 new arrivals for nearly 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 talked about, referring to the time by which he ought to present his authorities worth vary proposal in late April.
In accordance with Adams’ worth vary director, Jacques Jiha, the $1.1 billion shortfall comes from the money they assumed Hochul would doll out to city her worth vary plan. Jiha factored that amount into the mayor’s preliminary worth vary, which he provided as balanced ultimate month, solely to go looking out out shortly afterward that Hochul did not 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 talked about.
Migrants at Floyd Bennett Topic in 2023.Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
Mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus talked about Adams’ worth vary office assumed the governor would allocate that amount to city because of that is what it has given in earlier 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 talked about.
“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 talked about.
However, Hochul allotted $2.4 billion in migrant help to city ultimate yr, far in want of the 50-50 reduce up on newcomer costs that Adams had pushed for.
In the middle of the listening to, Jiha talked about city continues to be submitting claims to get reimbursements from the state for the full $2.4 billion allocation from ultimate yr. He talked about city has gotten $1 billion once more from the state thus far and has submitted claims for another $750 million.
Adams’ latest ask for state migrant help comes only a few weeks after he took a victory lap in his preliminary worth vary rollout for reducing new arrival spending.
On the time, he attributed the $2.4 billion in monetary financial savings over this fiscal yr and the next to his administration’s 30- and 60-day shelter limits for migrants. These insurance coverage insurance policies, combined with restrictions on border crossings enacted ultimate yr, have lowered the migrant inhabitants in metropolis shelters from its peak of 69,000 in late 2023 to 46,000.
