Mayor Eric Adams’ new executive budget proposal boosts Health Department funding from initial figures in his preliminary spending plan for just one year in many cases, leaving several signature health programs without the additional funding in future years.
Adams released his $115.1 billion executive budget proposal on Friday with $2.3 billion for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, representing a roughly $180 million increase over the department’s allocation in the mayor’s preliminary budget released in January. The additional funding fills gaps that had hung over the initial proposal and responds to some of the demands made by the City Council in their response. But it leaves questions around what funding the programs will receive in future years.
The largest addition is to school nurses, who have been funded mostly by the Health Department and Department of Education since federal pandemic aid stopped last year. The executive budget raises the Health Department’s share by $104 million in baseline funding in fiscal year 2026, which increases to $113 million in FY 2029. Including the Department of Education’s contribution, the plan allocates $298 million for the program, increasing funding to $307 million.
The Council had called for the city to budget recurring funding to fill the void left by the end of federal stimulus money. Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running for mayor against Adams, and Finance Chair Justin Brannan credited the administration for including many Council priorities “ for the first time” in a joint statement on Thursday.
“There remains work to fill gaps in funding for programs left out of this budget, but this is a better start from the Executive Budget than past years,” they said.
The funding comes as the Trump administration attempts to claw back $100 million in pandemic-era funding for vaccination and other disease prevention and treatment. Outside of the school nurse program, none of the services are will receive the boosted funding after fiscal year 2026.
The budget included an additional $47 million in one-time funding for intensive mobile treatment, a multidisciplinary service model often touted by Adams as an important component of the city’s constellation of mental health outreach and enforcement. IMT is one of two high-contact programs for individuals with the most complex cases of chronic homelessness, along with Assertive Community Treatment, which has a waitlist of 1,300 individuals referred for services.
The budget adds another $4 million for mental health clubhouses, another part of the network that combines a social club setting with services, in fiscal year 2026, but not in future years. Adams expanded the city’s use of clubhouses and made it a central component of the department’s mental health agenda under his first commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, former head of Fountain House, the largest clubhouse operator in the city.
The budget also adds to the department’s sexual health clinics by $4 million, trauma recovery centers by $5 million, and tuberculosis prevention and treatment by $7 million. It adds $3 million for the city’s syringe redemption pilot project, and adds another $3 million in the current fiscal year. None of the funding is continued in future years.
Other additions included $10 million for a grocery-to-go program funded through the Health Department and $3 million for mobile food vending.
