Published June 28, 2024 Updated June 28, 2024, 6:17 p.m. ET
By Aneeta Bhole and Matt Troutman
They’re landing the budget plane – and it’s a $112.4 billion jumbo jet.
Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams celebrated a handshake agreement Friday on a record-breaking 2025 fiscal year proposed budget that will reverse the majority of controversial cuts – including to libraries – pushed by Hizzoner in recent months.
The two Adamses — whose rivalry has become increasingly bitter behind the scenes – not only shook hands, but embraced in a chummy City Hall news conference chockablock with airplane jokes aiming to smooth over months of turbulent backroom budget negotiations.
The mayor, no relation to the speaker, even carried a toy plane to the event, a reference to his repeated promise that City Hall and the Council would “land the plane.”
“Pilots are not defined by the turbulence they go through, they’re defined by how well they land the plane,” he said.
The mammoth, $112.4 billion spending plan – expected to go before the Council for a vote Sunday – would be the largest budget in New York City’s history, dwarfing the $107 billion approved for the current fiscal year. If passed, it will occur right before a July 1 deadline.
A jubilant Adrienne Adams hailed the budget’s sweeping reversals of mid-year cuts that Hizzoner contended were necessary because of the multi-billion-dollar migrant crisis. But she also appeared to warn the mayor against future belt-tightening.
“It is imperative for our city’s future that the budget process moves away from restoring and toward strengthening and building,” she said.
The budget overall didn’t add funding so much as restore it, such as $58 million controversially cut to libraries that will bring seven-day service back to branches.
Other restorations include $53 million to city cultural institutions, $19.6 million to the Department of Education’s “Summer Rising” program and $14 million to community schools.
One set of controversial $170 million cuts to early childhood programs – that the mayor said were necessary because thousands of seats went empty in some neighborhoods, while waitlists grew elsewhere – weren’t fully reversed.
Instead, the pre-K and 3-K programs will be reset with $100 million of funding and an eye on making sure taxpayer dollars actually go toward seats that are used, Adrienne Adams said.
Lawmakers also agreed to restore $20 million to open 3-K seats to more than 1,700 families who did not receive offers for the coming school year.
“No longer can we simply budget for seats and let thousands sit empty when families remain on wait lists or are placed in areas that cause them to disregard the system altogether,” Adrienne Adams said.
The deal also includes generous additional funding for housing and education.
NYCHA will receive $2 billion over the next two years for capital projects designed to help the agency build more housing. Another $600 million will go into the education budget, officials said.
Transit advocates hailed a $21 million expansion of Fair Fares that will expand eligibility to New Yorkers who make 145% of the federal poverty line.
“In the City budget, subway and bus riders won the biggest Fair Fares expansion so far,” the Riders Alliance crowed in a statement.
Many lawmakers and advocates had been outraged over the mayor’s cuts, which he contended were necessary to plug the hole of the migrant crisis.
“It took a while, but I think once both sides agreed the city’s revenue forecast was looking way better than originally expected, it was inevitable that the mayor would reverse the budget cuts,” said Councilman David Carr (R-Staten Island).
The budgetary backflip on libraries — which faced scaling back to five-day-a-week service under the mayor’s cuts — didn’t come as a surprise to Minority Speaker Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
He cast the high-profile bookish debate as the fiscal year 2025 “dance, same as the last.”
“One. Two. Three. Four. Financial calamity, counter-claims, press conferences, found money, compromise, cha cha cha,” he said.
Outside New York Public Library’s iconic main branch on 42nd Street, Douglas Woodward applauded the restoration of library funding.
“It’s not just a matter of restoring the cuts, it’s a matter of making [the library] more available to people,” said the 70-year-old Columbia University adjunct professor.
“I think [Adams] knows that, politically, he’s in trouble, and that this is something that is an easy give.”
Julius Mitsui, a Garment District worker, said the mayor’s initial cuts made sense, given “all the money was going to illegal migrants.”
“Things cost money,” he said, adding, “The budget being restored is a good thing.”
Linda Johnson, President and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, said that the budget reaffirms hope in the values of the administration and city.
“I think the most important thing that this budget says about our values is that we value democracy, we value literacy,” she said at a rally after the announcement at City Hall.
The crowd cheered for the mayor as he exited City Hall, sparking a call-and-response cheer of “What did we do? We landed the plane!”