By Forum Staff
The City Council on Wednesday continued to call for the restoration of cuts and investments into vital services for New Yorkers. These include cultural institutions and libraries that have faced repeated cuts over the current and next fiscal year, early childhood education and student support programs, programs that improve safety and reduce recidivism, and more.
On Tuesday, the council released its May 2024 Economic and Tax Revenue Forecast with consistent revenue projections that continue to outpace those of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget by $1.1 billion for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025. The updated forecast provides clarity that the City can restore cuts to protect essential services and invest in the needs of New Yorkers, according to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan.
The Council’s funding priorities that were outlined in its Preliminary Budget Response, but left out of the Mayor’s Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget include, in part:
Education
Ahead of the City Council’s Executive Budget hearing by the Committee on Education, with the Committee on Finance, the Council called for funding restorations and deeper investments into the early childhood education and student support programs, many of which were previously supported by expiring federal COVID-19 stimulus funds.
The education budget priorities were outlined by the Council in its Preliminary Budget Response released in April, but several remained completely or partially unfunded in the Mayor’s Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget, including:
Early Childhood Education
The council has called for:
- Restoration of $170 million for 3-K and Pre-K seats; the Mayor’s Executive Budget separately maintained $92 million in expiring federal stimulus funds for 3-K operating costs
- Commitment of $60 million to expand full-day/full-year seats to better meet families’ needs
- $10 million in new funding for 3-K marketing and outreach ($3.5 million of which was included in the Mayor’s Executive Budget)
- $96 million to replace expiring federal stimulus funds for preschool special education ($81 million was included in the Mayor’s Executive Budget).
- $25 million in baselined funding to support expanding the reach of Promise NYC, which provides childcare vouchers for undocumented children and families that are ineligible for other programs.
District 75 Programs
The Council has called for the restoration and baselining of the $3 million cut to District 75 programs that provide highly specialized instructional support to students with special needs. Given increasing Carter Case expenditures and the increase in other due process cases related to special needs services and education, there is a greater need for schools to provide quality special education services. The lower-than-expected spending used to justify this cut was due to vacancies in District 75 teaching positions and other special education-related positions. To fulfill the exigent need for the provision of special education services, the Administration should be hiring for these positions rather than cutting spending based on anticipated future vacancies.
Public Safety
The council has also called for making public safety more of a priority. The panel has urged the mayor to restore and invest into programs that would help the City reduce recidivism, respond to mental health challenges, and provide stability to New Yorkers, including:
Mental Health Courts and Diversion Programs
- Mental health courts and their associated programs help facilitate appropriate mental health responses and reduce the likelihood of rearrest by diverting people into treatment with increased coordination of care to address underlying issues. These programs have lacked the capacity to fulfill the level of need, are too often unavailable, and can have average wait times of months for appropriate placement because of insufficient investments to operate at scale. The Council called upon the Administration to provide an additional $8.9 million for baseline funding for mental health courts that connect people to appropriate interventions: $4.7 million in additional resources for the Manhattan Mental Health Court and the Judicial Diversion Court’s Mental Health Track, and $4.2 million for alternative-to-incarceration programs (ATIs) and problem-solving courts.
Alternatives to Incarceration, Supervised Release and Re-entry Programming
- For years, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice has managed Alternatives to Incarceration, supervised release, and re-entry programming to reduce incarceration and recidivism. As part of the Mayor’s Program to Eliminate the Gap, these programs took a nearly $28 million cut and were only partially restored in the Executive Budget.
Trauma Recovery Centers
- Over the past two fiscal years, the Council has allocated nearly $5 million to establish New York State’s first trauma recovery centers (TRCs) in Brooklyn (2) and the Bronx (1). TRCs are designed to reach survivors of violent crime who lack access to traditional victim services and are less likely to engage in mainstream mental health or social services. They provide wraparound services and coordinated care, including mental health, physical health, and legal services, by utilizing multi-disciplinary staff that can include psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and outreach workers focused on providing survivor-centered healing and removing barriers to care. The Council called for $7.2 million in baselined funding to permanently sustain the existing TRCs and create one new center in both Queens and Staten Island in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
Community Justice Centers
- Community Justice Centers have bridged the gap between the courts and communities to improve public safety and public trust in justice. By helping community members access stable housing, neighborhood safety, re-entry services, and youth programming, these Centers reduce recidivism and help prevent crime while solving neighborhood problems. The Council called on the Administration to provide the necessary capital funds to construct facilities to house Community Justice Centers in the Bronx and Staten Island, the only boroughs without centers.
Cultural Institutions
The cultural and creative economy generates $110 billion in economic activity for our city. Yet, cultural institutions have been forced to absorb significant cuts over fiscal years 2024 and 2025 by the mayor’s administration. The Council identified the need to restore $75.6 million in its Preliminary Budget Response, but the Mayor’s Executive Budget only included $15 million. To ensure our city remains the world’s cultural capital and continues to thrive, the city budget must fully restore funding to these organizations and programs.
Similarly, libraries across the city have been severely impacted by the mayor’s budget cuts and face a shortfall of $58.3 million as a result. Libraries provide vitally important programs to New Yorkers of all ages in every neighborhood, like adult education classes, homework help for students, literacy and reading programs for young children, technology classes, and workforce development services. New Yorkers across the city have felt the impact of reduced services at all three library systems, including the loss of Sunday service, due to the mayor’s November cuts.
The council’s Preliminary Budget Response released in April outlined their funding needs. They include:
Supporting New York City’s Arts and Cultural Organizations
The Council has called for the restoration of $75.6 million to cultural institutions, including baselining the $40 million allocated in Fiscal Year 2024 for Cultural Institution Groups (CIGs), across-the-board grant increases for all Cultural Development Fund (CDF) recipients, and support many of the City’s artists, as well as the $20.1 million Fiscal 2024 cut and the $15.5 million Fiscal 2025 cut. In the Executive Budget, the Administration made partial restorations to its November and January cuts to arts and cultural organizations of $15 million.
Restoring 7-Day Service for the Queens, Brooklyn, and New York Public Libraries
The council has called on the administration to allocate an additional $58.3 million to the City’s three library systems to restore its series of funding cuts, avoid reduced hours and programming, and reinstate Sunday library service. This funding would restore the baseline cut of $22.1 million to libraries’ budgets, reinstate the one-shot funding of $20.5 million from Fiscal 2024, and cover the $15.7 million subsidy provided through City Council discretionary funding at budget adoption last June. These commitments would make the Fiscal 2025 budget for libraries commensurate with the adopted Fiscal 2024 funding level.
