City Hall, NY – During the City Council’s Executive Budget hearing jointly held by the Committee on Public Safety and the Committee on Finance on Thursday, the Council detailed changes to the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice’s (MOCJ) budgets and identified budget gaps within the Mayor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Executive Budget for programs and services that improve community safety, prevent hate crimes, and reduce gun violence.

The FY 2026 Executive Budget includes $844.9 million for MOCJ, $60.6 million more than in the Preliminary Budget and $23.5 million more than the FY 2025 adopted budget. The increase in the Executive Plan is reflective of additional baselined funding for public defenders ($20 million) and partial restorations of the November 2023 Plan Program to Eliminate the Gap reductions to alternatives to incarceration ($7.6 million) and re-entry services ($4.7 million).

For the NYPD, the FY 2026 Executive Budget includes $6.14 billion, $8 million less than in the Preliminary Budget and $309 million more than in the FY 2025 adopted budget. The Executive Budget does not include meaningful changes for the NYPD in FY 2026, but $301.8 million was added in FY 2025 for NYPD overtime (OT) costs. The department’s current FY 2025 OT budget is slightly over $1 billion, but its leaders testified at the March Preliminary Budget hearing that it was on pace to spend approximately $1.23 billion, making it likely that even more funding for OT will be required for the current FY 2025 budget. The OT budget for FY 2026 is currently $578 million, which is likely insufficient to cover actual costs based on current and historical spending. The Council’s Preliminary Budget Response urged the mayoral administration to fill all vacant or absent 911 system operator and police officer positions, which required no additional cost to the City with funding already in the budget.

The Council also outlined the following funding public safety priorities in its Preliminary Budget Response to confront rising hate crimes and reduce gun violence and recidivism, but they are either underfunded or left out of the Mayor’s FY 2026 Executive Budget:

Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes Funding

The Council called on the Administration to ensure that the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes has adequate resources to address the troubling high levels of hate crimes across the five boroughs. The Office coordinates the City’s efforts through an interagency committee consisting of over 20 city agencies and all five District Attorney Hate Crime Units, as well as networks of community-based providers and organizations. This work requires adequate funding to operationalize. The Executive Budget included no additional funding for this office.

Supervised Release Intensive Case Management Pilot Expansion

Studies have shown that a relatively small core group of people commit a disproportionate number of lower-level crimes in New York City. People in this group often suffer from drug addiction, have experienced abuse or serious mental illness, and often do not receive the interventions necessary to avoid recidivism. The City has initiated a Pre-Trial Supervised Release Intensive Case Management (ICM) pilot program that provides intensive case management and connection to services, therapy, and treatment for people with serious mental illness and addiction issues who were arrested and released pre-trial. The existing pilot includes funding for two Supervised Release ICM pilots. The initial results of the pilot show positive results for people unresponsive to traditional supervised release programs, connecting more people with serious mental illness and addiction issues to services that ensure they appear in court and avoid re-offending. To build on this success, the Council proposed the Administration expand this program to all five boroughs with an additional $46 million, and the Executive Budget only added $9.1 million for its expansion.

Alternatives to Incarceration Restoration

Recognizing that public safety cannot be achieved by law enforcement alone, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice brings together diverse stakeholders to address the systemic issues that undermine the safety and stability of neighborhoods. Many of the programs it funds help to prevent crime and reduce recidivism. Yet, the Administration cut funding for some of these programs in the November 2023 Financial Plan. The Council proposed the Administration reverse these cuts and restore $8.9 million in FY 2026 for Alternative to Incarceration programs that provide services tailored to participants, which can help reduce unnecessary incarceration and recidivism. The Executive Budget partially restored $7.6 million of the previous cuts.

Re-entry Services Restoration

The City works with nonprofit providers to offer employment opportunities and job training, as well as holistic services such as mental, behavioral, and physical health care, substance abuse treatment, case management, and legal services for formerly incarcerated individuals. These programs can better serve individuals in their own neighborhoods, where community-based services can help to ensure their success in securing employment, achieving stability, and as a result, lower recidivism. Approximately 70 percent of people detained at Rikers who are released return to the City, rather than move into State custody. Re-entry providers have found that individuals who receive re-entry services are 70 percent less likely to experience homelessness and saw a 50 percent reduction in psychiatric hospitalizations post-incarceration. The Administration cut funding from these programs in recent financial plans. The Council proposed the Administration reverse cuts made to re-entry programs by restoring and baselining $8 million starting in FY 2026. The Executive Budget only partially restored $4.7 million of the previous cuts.

South Bronx Community Justice Center

The South Bronx Community Justice Center, operated by the Center for Justice Innovation, works to create a safer, more equitable Bronx through community-driven public safety initiatives, youth opportunity, and economic mobility efforts focused on the South Bronx. The Council urged that an additional $2 million would fund life changing programs, such as gun violence prevention, crisis intervention, and high school equivalency programs. The Executive Budget did not include any baselined funding for the center.

Council Initiatives

The Council’s public safety-related budget initiatives total over $48 million to fund programs that support crime victims, hate crime and gun violence prevention, recidivism reduction, and other community-based programming. It is critical that this funding, left out of the Mayor’s Executive Budget, is included in the final budget through a continued full commitment towards Council discretionary funding.     

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