City Hall, NY – Today, Speaker Adrienne Adams delivered opening remarks at the Council’s Committee on Finance hearing to examine the Mayor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Executive Budget. Today’s hearing concludes the Council’s series of FY 2026 Executive Budget hearings, where respective Committees reviewed agency budgets and received testimony from agency leadership and the public.

Below are the Speaker’s full remarks as prepared for delivery:

Good afternoon. Thank you, Finance Chair Brannan, for holding today’s Executive Budget Hearing, the last for Fiscal Year 2026. 

The Mayor’s Executive Budget for FY26 is 115.1 billion dollars, an increase of half a billion dollars from the FY26 Preliminary Budget.

This week, the Council unveiled our latest Economic and Tax Forecast, which shows consistent revenue projections that continue to outpace OMB’s by 1.7 billion dollars for Fiscal Years 2025 and 2026. 

Our city’s economy is resilient, despite the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s volatile economic and tariff policies that have undermined U.S. economic growth.

Prior to the tariffs and trade policy turmoil, the national economy was expected to grow at a healthy rate of around 2.1% this year. Now, due to Trump’s policies, the Council expects economic growth to fall to 1.3% in 2025.  

During this period of chaos from the federal government, the Council’s focus is on advancing investments that help make our city safer and more affordable. New Yorkers count on our city budget to prioritize their needs and make it possible for them to build their lives in our great city. 

While the Executive Budget includes some key investments that the Council has long called for, and were included in our Preliminary Budget Response, there remains work to do to ensure that the adopted budget includes vital funding for programs missing in the Mayor’s Executive Budget.

New Yorkers, from our youngest to our seniors, depend on cultural institutions, libraries, and parks to maintain meaningful connections to each other, their cultures, and their communities. 

Our parks are a lifeline for our city. Annually, they receive over 100 million visits. And yet, compared to other major American cities, New York City allocates a significantly less proportion of its budget to our Parks Department. We need to narrow that gap and allocate more funding for key programs, staffing, and maintenance, so that our parks can remain clean and safe for all to enjoy.

And our seniors, who are the crown jewels of our communities, deserve further support. We would not be here without them, and yet, so many are struggling to age in place and still experience food insecurity. We can address this by expanding access to home-delivered meals and upgrading older adult centers that provide essential services. 

To advance public safety, the mayoral administration must adequately invest in the programs proven to make our communities safer. Following through on the City’s commitment to close Rikers is part of improving public safety. 

We must invest, at the scale needed, in mental health and community-based safety programs that are proven to reduce recidivism, help crime victims recover, and stop cycles of violence. While some funding has been added into the Executive Budget, our investments are still incomplete. The city budget must commit additional funding for residential treatment beds for people with mental health challenges, justice-involved supportive housing, and other critical interventions. 

We must also support working families by fully investing in our public schools, childcare vouchers, and early childhood education programs, like 3-K and Pre-K. Ensuring the stability of the state’s Child Care Assistance Program vouchers is critical to protect families’ access to affordable childcare. We need to be moving towards expanding access to all families, not simply protecting what currently exists, which we know leaves too many without support.

CUNY, NYCHA, and housing investments also need to be prioritized in the final budget.  

Finally, community-based organizations and non-profits serving on the frontlines of our communities rely on Council funding to deliver for New Yorkers. We need to ensure the City keeps its commitment to them, and to the communities that they serve.

Director Jiha, I hope to hear from you today about the steps OMB is taking to address these outstanding issues in this budget. We have spent the past days of budget hearings listening to agency officials and New Yorkers about the immense needs in our city, and it’s critical that the City delivers. 

Thank you, and I will now turn it back over to Chair Brannan.

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