Mayor Mamdani’s first city budget reversed a planned expansion of the NYPD and closed a $12 billion deficit inherited from the Adams administration while directing new money to housing vouchers, mental health care, and education, according to a joint statement released this week by The People’s Plan NYC, a coalition of progressive grassroots and labor groups. Ten organizations signed the statement, calling the spending plan “a real break from austerity and a good start.”
The most contested element was police headcount. After an outcry from advocates, Mamdani reversed a decision by the NYPD Commissioner to hire 580 new officers, keeping the department’s headcount flat, and cut 586 vacancies at the Department of Corrections. The statement credited years of outside organizing and the City Council’s Progressive Caucus for holding firm on social safety net programs during negotiations.
The budget is funded in part by a new pied-a-terre tax and additional state aid that Mayor Mamdani secured in Albany, according to The People’s Plan. It allocates $175 million for CityFHEPS rental assistance vouchers, $79 million for the Fair Fares transit affordability program, $18 million for crisis care and mental health, $25 million in new childcare investments, and $15 million for gender-affirming care. It also restores funding for parks, libraries, and the City Commission on Human Rights.
“This budget is a clean break from the corruption and austerity politics of the past,” said Zara Nasir, Executive Director of The People’s Plan, in the statement. “Essential programs like parks and libraries were baselined, and finally the NYPD’s budget isn’t cannibalizing the very social safety net that builds prosperity and safety in the first place. There are still gaps in the social safety net because Governor Hochul didn’t have the courage to make the rich pay their fair share, but this is a strong foundation for the city to build from.”
The budget also funds 181 new staff at the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and 50 new auditors at the Department of Finance over three years to make corporate lawbreakers pay, according to The People’s Plan. CUNY programs received $4.5 million for ASAP and $9.1 million for ACE. The budget also includes increased funding for immigrant legal services and $2 million in seed funding for GasFreeNYC, a pilot program to transition small homes off fossil fuels.
The budget also includes $26 million for non-carceral hate violence prevention. Jews For Racial and Economic Justice singled out the allocation. Audrey Sasson, the organization’s Executive Director, said in the statement that JFREJ had spent over a decade pushing for this investment and that the funding, tied to a campaign promise Mamdani made to increase hate violence prevention funding by 800 percent, marked a break from years in which the city failed to deliver. “The Mamdani administration and the City Council have significantly raised the bar for what it looks like to comprehensively address antisemitism and hate violence,” Sasson said.
More than $70 million went to key education programs. Maria Bautista, founder of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, cited specific line items in the statement: $8.4 million for the Sensory Exploration, Education and Discovery program, $6 million for restorative justice, $5 million for the mental health continuum, $4 million for immigrant family communications and outreach, and $3.3 million for Student Success Centers. Andrea Ortiz, Director of the Dignity in Schools Campaign of New York, said the budget restored funding for school equity initiatives that had been set to expire and called on the city to continue transitioning school safety away from the NYPD and into “supportive and well-paying, union jobs.”
Darren Mack, Co-Director of Freedom Agenda, praised the investments in community-based mental health treatment teams and crisis respite centers over police expansion but said the work of shrinking the jail population and closing Rikers would need to continue. “This budget represents key steps in the right direction, and progress we will need to continue to build on,” Mack said in the statement.
Several organizations flagged what the budget left out. VOCAL-NY, in a separate statement, said it remained “disappointed that there was no investment into a free fares program for the lowest-income New Yorkers who cannot afford the train and buses.” The coalition identified four main gaps: no funding for free fares for low-income riders, limited funding for the childcare workforce and waitlist, limited funding to backfill CUNY positions, and only a partial expansion of CityFHEPS housing vouchers. Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Co-Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, said Albany must pass tax-the-rich legislation next year to more fully fund children and families. James Inniss, Deputy Political Director at New York Communities for Change, said the GasFreeNYC pilot’s $2 million allocation fell short of full funding and that more investment in childcare providers and CityFHEPS vouchers is still needed.
Gustavo Gordillo, Co-Chair of NYC-DSA, said the outcome reflected “the power of a movement,” and Fahd Ahmed, Director of DRUM – Desis Rising Up and Moving, said years of budget justice organizing and electoral shifts led to a budget “centered on meeting people’s needs.” The People’s Plan said its coalition plans to keep organizing at the city level and will push Albany next year for additional revenue to fund the affordability agenda.
Featured image: VOCAL-NY
