From Newsgroup: nyc.politics

Mamdani and City Council adopt $126B budget that dilutes promises on
rental aid

NEW YORK u Mayor Zohran Mamdani reached an 11th hour deal Tuesday with
the New York City Council on a $125.8 billion municipal budget that
waters down a promised expansion of a rental assistance program u a
reversal that speaks to the cityAs difficult fiscal climate.

The diluted expansion of the program for low-income residents runs
counter to a campaign promise Mamdani made as a mayoral candidate last
year.

The budget deal u MamdaniAs first as mayor u also reverses his initial
plan to increase the NYPD headcount, a proposal his allies criticized
him for, and expands the cityAs public transit discount program, which
the mayor said brings him closer to making good on his pledge to deliver fare-free bus service.

The agreement on the 2027 fiscal year budget was formalized Tuesday
morning with a handshake at City Hall between Mamdani and Council
Speaker Julie Menin. The ceremonial gesture took place just 15 hours
before the budget was legally due u an unusually late deal that came
together after at times tense negotiations between the two sides.

Later in the day, with less than four hours until the deadline, the
Council passed the budget in a 46-6 vote. Five of the no votes came from Council Republicans furious with Mamdani for reversing the NYPD
headcount boost. The other no vote came from Council member Althea
Stevens, a Democrat who said she couldnAt back the budget because it
didnAt allocate enough direct funding for her Bronx district.

oAbove all else, this budget offers a roadmap for the years to come,o
Mamdani said in the City Hall Rotunda after the handshake with Menin.
oThis is only the first budget of our administration. Many more will
follow, and every budget that follows will build on the principles
established here: Honest budgeting, fiscal discipline, transparent
government and an unwavering belief that working people deserve a City
Hall that delivers for them every single day.o

The late agreement underscores the fraught nature of this yearAs city
budget negotiations.

After promising sweeping big government investments as a mayoral
candidate last year, Mamdani scaled back many of his costly proposals
upon taking office, a reversal he claimed was necessary because of a multibillion-dollar municipal deficit. That fiscal hole, which Mamdani
has blamed on his predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, drove the
current mayor to focus on belt-tightening across the municipal
bureaucracy, especially after he only partially succeeded in his push to
secure state-level tax hikes on millionaires and corporations. Mamdani
is expected to have to deal with a sizable deficit in next yearAs
budget, too, meaning he will likely need to continue his push to raise
taxes, find ways to cut costs, or both.

Given his campaign promises and his affiliation with the Democratic
Socialists of America, MamdaniAs embrace of fiscal responsibility as a
priority has come off to many as counterintuitive. And heAs faced
pushback from his allies, including progressive members of the City
Council, for pointing to that posture in defending why he canAt u at
least for now u make good on several of his big-ticket promises.

That dynamic became especially evident in the fight over the rental
assistance program, known as the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement, or CityFHEPS. The program subsidizes rent for
low-income New Yorkers, and funding for it became the main sticking
point in the final days of negotiations between Mamdani and the Council.

As a mayoral candidate, Mamdani promised to clear the way for 2023
Council legislation that would vastly expand eligibility for the program
u a measure Adams refused to implement. But upon becoming mayor, Mamdani changed course, saying the expansion would be far too costly to enact
amid the cityAs deep deficit.

In TuesdayAs budget deal, Mamdani and the Council reached a compromise:
Instead of expanding the existing initiative, the city will launch a new voucher program with a $175 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Only $125 million of that allocation will continue as recurring funding
for years beyond that.

ThatAs a markedly smaller investment than what was envisioned under the
2023 Council legislation Mamdani promised to implement. According to
estimates, that expansion would have required roughly $1 billion at
minimum in additional annual funding, on top of the $1.8 billion that
CityFHEPS already costs every year.

ItAs also less than what the Council pushed for in negotiations. Just
last week, Menin said the Council was willing to settle for $300 million
in additional annual funding, though advocates had pressed for at least
$500 million.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/30/mamdani-and-city-council-reach-1 26b-budget-deal-that-dilutes-promises-on-rental-aid-00981885

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