July 1, 2024 Office of the Mayor News
Justin Finch: Today is the first day of the new fiscal year for the City of New York, and the ink is still drying on the budget deal signed by the City Council just yesterday.
Vanessa Freeman: It is official. The $112.4 billion budget for 2025 is now in effect. Mayor Eric Adams joins us live from Gracie Mansion to discuss how this budget will shape the future of New York. Good morning, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you so much for being with us.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. It's great being on with both of you, and I hope you're staying cool in this weather. I'm trying to.
Freeman: Listen, you as well. We appreciate you. Let's jump into this deal, right, announced on Friday but officially signed by the City Council just yesterday. We know it was a tough battle, a lot of back and forth between you, Speaker Adrienne Adams, and Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan. As we look at how everything all played out, would you have done anything differently here?
Mayor Adams: You always want to do things differently, but life is not about looking in the rearview mirror. It's the front windshield that matters, and I could not have asked for a better partner with Speaker Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan. We were able to put $53 million into our cultural institution, $58 million in our libraries, an additional $2 billion in capital, over $26 billion for housing, and a host of other things, parks, the pre-K, 3K. It's about sitting down in a room with real intentions for New Yorkers, and that's what we did.
Finch: All right. Mayor Adams, you just mentioned there the City Council was able to restore $1 billion in cuts that were planned for schools, libraries, and those cultural institutions, plus early childhood education. With that now restored, how quickly will those services now come back online, do you think, for New Yorkers?
Mayor Adams: It's interesting. Folks like to say the City Council restored. No, we restored. We work as a team. We sit in a room and we look at the money coming in and the money coming out, and then we make these tough decisions. We took small decisions at the beginning of this administration that allows us to have over $8 billion in reserves during difficult times.
At the same time, we knew we had to find efficiencies. Taxpayers were not getting their money's worth. There was a lot of inefficiencies in our agencies, and over $7 billion we were able to find in efficiencies. Let's keep in mind, we had an over $7 billion budget gap that we had to close. You're going to see these dollars right away. July 1st is the beginning of a new year, and these monies are going to go into our agencies to continue these initiatives.
Freeman: A lot of people are looking forward to it, but Mayor Adams, the big question, the big lingering question, right, is this migrant crisis. It was actually one of the main reasons for these cuts. Migrant crisis is not going anywhere anytime soon. It's creating a lot of tension in some neighborhoods. Once this migrant crisis isn't going anywhere, will we be right here this time again next year? If not, what's the mechanism put in place to avoid it?
Mayor Adams: That's a great question. You are so right. It's not going anywhere soon. When you think about it, we spent over $4.9 billion on this crisis. Those are $4.9 billion that could have gone to other services, particularly since we had of dollars that we were losing during the COVID funding from the previous administration.
When you look at the PEG that we put on the spending of the migrant crisis to make sure that we're using our dollars correctly. Next year, we are going to be looking at this as well. We're still getting close to almost 5,000 migrants a month, almost 5,000 a month that's still coming in. We made smart decision, Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom, of doing the 30-day program. We have about 65,000 that are still in our care. This is out of 200,000 that arrived in our city. I really take my hat off to the administration and New Yorkers who are making this smart decision to manage this humanitarian crisis.
Finch: All right, Mayor Adams, we're going to turn our attention right now to the latest on that police-involved shooting of Win Rozario. His family met with the attorney general last week, and we know Win would have turned 20 this week on July 4th. Have you now given any thought to reconsidering your position on suspending or firing officers who were involved in that shooting?
Mayor Adams: It really breaks my heart. many people know my days with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement who cared, always talked about how we could have justice and safety. They go together. One of the major problems we're facing in this city, we're dealing with severe mental health issues, and that is a crisis that we must address. Dr. Vasan has been really leaning into this problem.
We're not going to take action on the suspension of these officers right now. We're going to let the lawsuit and the internal investigation take its place. It's a difficult job for officers to respond when someone is armed with a weapon. You have to be concerned about the family members that are present, the individual with the weapon, and those officers that are involved. The attorney general and other entities will conduct a thorough investigation.
Freeman: Mayor, staying with the NYPD crime crackdown here, we know the crackdown across the city, it does continue. More police community units are patrolling these streets. It's made a visible difference, but can you tell us more about the change you hope to see with these?
Mayor Adams: We're really pleased with what our first commissioner, Sewell, did, as the police commissioner now, Commissioner Caban, who brings his own touch, and he just interacts well with the community. It's a combination of prevention and intervention.
The preventive things we're doing is everything from Summer Rising program to SYEP, summer employment, to justice-involved young people. Then there's also the intervention. Right now, New Yorkers must be safe. We turned a corner in our transit system. In January, we had a slight bump in transit crime.
We have not seen that again after the 1,000 officers were surged into the system, partnered with our scout program and other initiatives. We're on the street, removing over 40,000 illegal mopeds, dirt bikes, and three-wheelers off our streets, going after the ghost cars as well, over 15,000 guns removed off our streets.
That's why we see a decrease in shooters and homicides in five of our seven major crime categories. These officers are working. That's why we knew it was important to settle our union contract with them. They know that we have their backs as they have the backs of New Yorkers. All right.
Finch: Lots of progress there. I want to switch gears now. Mayor Adams, we saw you out yesterday marching in that New York City Pride Parade, which is the largest, by the way, in the country. Despite a few protesters we saw, were there any other major issues to report there?
Mayor Adams: Nothing major. Many people after the parade had to end prematurely because of the weather. Many people went to Washington Square Park. We had a couple of thousand there. When I looked at the drones that were showing the park, we had about 15,000 that was there. Officers responded. They had a light touch.
It just goes to show you the discipline of the Police Department. We put necessary barriers in place, and we made sure that people were able to have the end of the festivities without any major disruption. When it was time to close the park, we made the decision to close the park. Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry and the team was there to make sure we were able to bring a close to the celebration.
Freeman: Just like that, July 1st, now looking ahead to the 4th of July celebration. How is the NYPD getting ready for those festivities?
Mayor Adams: it's so important, and I'm glad you said that, how's the NYPD getting ready? Because oftentimes during a celebration, while people are celebrating, the Police Department must keep us safe. Because they're those who like to use these opportune times to because some form of havoc. We are allowing Deputy Commissioner Weiner, who's our intelligence division, she's making sure we monitor any threats to the city, and there are no known credible threats.
We're also ensuring that our routes, our entryways, and how people can enjoy the festivities along our waterways, we want to make sure that they're safe. We're asking people, don't drink and drive, don't consume too much alcohol. We're going to celebrate with our families and enjoy one of the best shows you're going to see. There's a new introduction this year that I'm really excited about, and that's with drones. We really allow the use of drones in the city, and we're excited about it. Looking forward to that.
Finch: Mayor Adams, thank you so much for your time and insight in joining us here this morning.
Freeman: Have a good one. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Have a great holiday. Thank you. Happy Independence Day.
Freeman: Take care. Happy Independence Day.
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