The revised budget plan that Mayor Eric Adams is expected to release on Thursday will include his administration’s first formal acknowledgment of the threats that President Donald Trump poses to New York City’s finances. But, far from hinting at significant cutbacks, the mayor’s rhetoric remains rosy — going so far as to unveil a new tagline for his spending plan.
“This is going to be the best budget ever,” Adams said at a Monday morning appearance.
Adams’ preliminary $115 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2026, released in January days before Trump’s inauguration, did not account for any potential changes to federal aid, immigration policy or regulations. That is expected to change in Adams’ executive budget due May 1: City budget director Jacques Jiha testified last month that the executive plan will rely on an updated economic forecast encompassing those Trump policies, which could induce a recession and have already jeopardized hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
“The city and its electeds will need to step back and think about: given our resources, what are our priorities and how do we most effectively spend them?” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission. “We can’t do everything for everyone.”
New York City is already at risk of losing out on about $535 million between the current and next fiscal years through Trump’s executive orders freezing federal grants, according to an analysis released Monday by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. But far bigger sums are at risk: Adams’ preliminary budget relies on $7.4 billion in federal funds — about 6% of the total — much of which could be targeted in the tax-and-spending-cut plan currently taking shape in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Meanwhile, global economic uncertainty unleashed by Trump’s tariffs are likely to induce at least a mild recession that would cost the city tens of thousands of jobs, Comptroller Brad Lander said this month. And the city faces further uncertainty about how much aid it will get from Albany, with the state budget still unresolved and nearly a month late as of Monday afternoon. (The state budget appears unlikely to include $1 billion in aid for the migrant crisis that City Hall had assumed it would receive earlier this year, creating another hole the city will need to fill.)
Watchdogs have called on the Adams administration to get specific about how it will hedge against federal threats. City Comptroller Brad Lander, the Citizens Budget Commission and the Independent Budget Office have all called on the mayor to put money into the city’s general reserves or its rainy-day fund, the latter of which can be carried over from year to year and used in a recession to prevent severe service cuts. City Hall’s preliminary budget in January did not make any additions to the general reserve or rainy-day fund, which contain a respective $1.2 billion and $2 billion.
Lander has called for a $1 billion addition to the rainy-day fund; the Citizens Budget Commission called for $500 million. Champeny, of the CBC, noted that the city has typically weathered past recessions through a combination of tax increases, service cuts and federal aid — the latter of which seems unlikely in the present moment.
“The city and state really need to think about how prepared they are to weather that economic contraction,” Champeny said.
Some, including the CBC, have also urged Adams to omit any new spending — a tough sell in any year but especially this one, given that the mayor is seeking re-election. On Monday, Adams announced a new $46 million commitment, spread over several fiscal years, to build more congregate supportive housing. And the City Council will push for about $2 billion in new spending when they negotiate with the administration ahead of a June 30 deadline.
While Adams’ next spending plan may acknowledge Trump’s threats, the mayor himself continues to hold his tongue. In the wake of his corruption case being dropped, the mayor has praised the president and officials such as FBI Director Kash Patel, while speaking warmly about the White House’s chaos-inducing tariff policies and the deportation of a legal Maryland resident to an El Salvador prison.
Asked about upcoming budget negotiations with the City Council on Monday, the mayor repeated one of his favorite mantras: “We’re going to land the plane.”
