(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is rattling his ‘tin cup’ for more state funding to cover the city’s costs of providing temporary shelter and food for tens of thousands of migrants.
Testifying before a budget hearing on Tuesday — at the Legislature’s annual “Tin Cup Day” when municipal leaders ask for more funding from the budget — Adams said the state needs to ante up more cash to make up for lack of support from the federal government. He asked for another $1.1 billion from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $252 billion budget.
“While we appreciate the contributions the state has made, we urge you to include asylum seeker funding for the city in the state enacted budget,” Adams told members of the Legislature’s House and Senate Ways and Means Committees.
“Without your help, we will have to close a $1.1 billion budget shortfall for this program within 12 weeks and ask for the state’s assistance to do so,” he told the panel.
Hochul’s preliminary budget, filed two weeks ago, calls for tax cuts, expanded child credits and record spending on programs amid better-than-expected revenues. However, the spending plan doesn’t include funding for migrant costs, and Hochul administration budget writers aren’t planning to ask for any.
“The FY26 Executive Budget does not include any new funding for the migrant crisis, and our position has not changed,” a Hochul spokesperson said in a statement.
Adams told the panel that his $114.5 billion preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget, which the City Council is considering, is balanced and includes $2.4 billion in savings in this fiscal year, which he attributed in part to declining migrant arrivals in recent months.
“This trend is due to the steps we have taken to put more than 184,000 migrants on the path to self-sufficiency, and federal border policies we had advocated for,” Adams said.
New York City has already spent more than $9.6 billion on migrant costs over the past two years amid a surge of more than 200,000 asylum seekers who’ve arrived in the city following a historic surge of immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border under the previous Biden administration.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Adams also asked lawmakers to approve his “Axe the Tax” plan to reduce or eliminate income taxes for the city’s lowest income earners and his proposed changes to the state’s criminal discovery law and involuntary commitment program.
“We are looking forward to working with you as we fight to make New York a safer, more affordable city, and the best place to live and raise a family for generations to come,” he told lawmakers.
