By Michael V. Cusenza
Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday testified in Albany before several State Senate and Assembly committees and asked for assistance from the Legislature in passing two bills and reforms to the discovery law; and continued financial support to manage the international asylum seeker crisis.
Adams said his “Axe the Tax for the Working Class” bill would eliminate or cut city personal income taxes for low-income New Yorkers.
“At a moment when our state faces a historic affordability crisis, this bold action will generate an average benefit of $350, putting a total of more than $63 million back into the pockets of low-income families, and help more than 582,000 filers and their dependents,” Hizzoner said.
Adams also testified that passage of his “Supportive Interventions Act” will allow people with severe mental illness to get the lasting support they need.
“I have been very clear: our subways are not a hospital and the days of ignoring people in need are over.
That is why it is time to enact the Supportive Interventions Act, which clarifies that a person requires hospitalization if mental illness is preventing them from meeting their basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.
It will also help ensure people remain hospitalized until they are truly ready for discharge and receive “assisted outpatient treatment” afterwards if they need that level of ongoing support.
Relying on a familiar refrain, Adams said on Tuesday that “public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.”
“[W]e also must do more to ensure repeat offenders are truly held accountable and keep our communities safe,” he noted. “Well-meaning criminal justice reform has led to an unintended consequence. This includes dismissals of cases due to minor violations of burdensome discovery rules, also causing remaining cases to take longer, leading people to linger on Rikers Island longer. We ask you to support an approach that balances a defendant’s rights with the smooth functioning of our criminal justice system, speeding along cases and preventing needless technical dismissals. This will help us reduce our jail populations and keep our people safe.”
And Adams reiterated that the City should never have to face an international humanitarian crisis alone.
“Our Fiscal Year 2026 Preliminary Budget is balanced and includes $2.4 billion in savings in this fiscal year and the next related to the decline in migrant arrivals over the past 31 weeks. 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. These measures helped reduce the number of asylum seekers in our care from a high of 69,000 in January 2024 to less than 47,000 today.
“However,” Hizzoner continued, “we have still spent more than $6.9 billion to care for the immigrants over just three fiscal years and anticipate spending billions more in the years to come. 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. 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. This is on top of the costs of complying with new state budget provisions that will cost New York City taxpayers $165 million more annually for MTA needs and $347 million from lower-than-expected Foundation Aid.”
