(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rolled out a balanced budget Tuesday that closes an estimated $12 billion revenue gap he inherited from previous administrations.
Mamdani said the $127 billion spending plan doesn’t call for raising wholesale taxes or tap into the city’s “rainy day fund” to cover the city’s operating expenses. The budget rollout Tuesday afternoon came hours after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state would provide another $4 billion to the city to help it reduce the shortfall, bringing the total pledged state aid to $8 billion over the next two years.
“Many said the only way out of this was slashing services and passing an austerity budget. We rejected that,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist, said Tuesday afternoon. “Our city is now on firm financial ground.”
The budget plan rolled out Tuesday would reduce a personal income tax credit for filers making more than $142,000 a year, but who are also subject to the city’s unincorporated business tax. The move would generate $68 million annually, city officials said.
Mamdani said the city’s overall deficit — estimated at more than $12 billion over two years — is the largest gap in fundings since the Great Depression and attributed the shortfall to previous mayoral administrations.
“We scoured for savings and demanded greater efficiency from every part of city government. We partnered with Albany, securing billions in new funding, and reversing many of the cost burdens that Andrew Cuomo shifted to the city over his decade as governor. And we taxed the rich, asking those with the most to contribute a little bit more to support those with the least,” Mamdani said in remarks. “We pulled New York City back from an existential fiscal break.”
Mamdani rolled out his preliminary budget in January that called for raising taxes on millionaires and corporations to reduce a budget deficit estimated at the time at more than $7 billion. He threatened to increase property taxes across the board in New York City unless Albany lawmakers approve his controversial taxing plans, but Hochul and legislative leaders rejected the mayor’s demands.
In addition to the new state aid, Hochul and lawmakers did however sign off on a “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued over $5 million, which is expected to drum up $500 million for the city’s operating expenses.
The move has angered the city’s business community and ultra-wealthy New Yorkers like Citadel founder Ken Griffin, who criticized the mayor for doing a video outside his Manhattan property in support of the tax. Griffin has vowed to relocate his business to low tax states.
Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is challenging Hochul for governor, blasted the state’s bailout of New York City, calling it a “daylight robbery.”
“Kathy Hochul just committed the largest daylight robbery in New York history, looting $4 billion from your family’s grocery and rent budget to bankroll Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment,” Blakeman said in a statement. “She’s taking money from police and schools around the state to fund a radical agenda, but when I’m Governor, the stealing stops. I’ll cut your taxes, slash your utility bills in half, and put your hard-earned money back where it belongs—in your pocket, not Mamdani’s.”
