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New York Citys new $107 billion budget will include $4 billion in funding for affordable housing in the next fiscal year a cash infusion Mayor Adams promised two years ago and which Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has pressed for in recent months.

The mayor and Council Speaker announced the new spending plan with a handshake agreement Thursday at City Hall a deal the Council is expected to formally approve Friday. The new budget tops last years spending plan which eventually grew to $104 billion by approximately $3 billion.

The agreement we reached today comes in the midst of a budget cycle dominated by great challenges and unexpected crises, but Im proud to say that we have successfully navigated through these many crosscurrents to arrive at a strong and fiscally responsible budget, Mayor Adams said. Early in this administration I made it clear that government must be more efficient and use our limited resources wisely. Our mission is not simply to save money, it is to set priorities.

Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams shake hands as they announce an agreement for a budget for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) at City Hall on Thursday, June 29, 2023. (ED REED/Mayoral Photography Office)

Council Speaker Adams, who isnt related to the mayor, has made securing more funding for housing a priority for months to address both the affordable housing crisis the city is facing and the huge influx of migrants whove streamed into the five boroughs since last year, causing its homeless shelters to surpass capacity.

On Thursday, she took a victory lap for locking down that additional funding, saying it would help address record-high levels of evictions and homelessness.

This year, the city will reach the target of a $4 billion capital commitment for housing that this moment demands, she said.

Of that $4 billion annual allotment, $2.5 billion will go to the citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development and $1.5 billion will go to the New York City Housing Authority in the 2024 fiscal year. The $4 billion in spending next year relies, in part, on reallocating money initially budgeted further down the road. Over the next ten years, the city has budgeted $23.9 billion for affordable housing.

The general funding level at HPD will extend into the following years, with the agency set to get approximately $2 billion for affordable housing in both 2025 and 2026.

The budget deal will also include a restoration of $32.9 million in NYCHA funding that would have been removed under the mayors latest executive budget.

That money will be put toward the housing authoritys vacant-unit readiness program, which is aimed at bringing empty apartments into use more quickly.

Mayor Adams and City Council members have been engaged in a contentious back-and-forth over the budget in recent weeks, with the mayor contending that deep cuts are necessary to maintain the citys long-term fiscal health and Council members arguing that many of those cuts would be to the citys overall detriment.

For Speaker Adams, money for affordable housing has been a particularly pressing concern. Shes made the case repeatedly that more cash for permanent affordable housing is needed to help alleviate the pressure migrants have placed on the shelter system.

MANHATTAN, NY - MAY 17, 2023 - Migrants arriving from Mission and McAllen, TX, are greeted by volunteers at the Port Authority Bus Terminal early Wednesday. Five buses each carrying around 45 people has arrived at the bus terminal today. The steady flow of Migrants hasnt stopped and some are arriving at the three airports in the area. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News) (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

During his 2021 campaign for mayor, Mayor Adams vowed to put $4 billion a year towards affordable housing. But in the last budget, both he and the Council fell short of that goal, allocating about $2.5 billion for affordable housing in the last fiscal year.

Under his most recent executive budget plan, Mayor Adams had proposed cuts across almost all city agencies to help defray the costs of the migrant crisis, which his budget team estimates will cost more than $4 billion to address by next year.

Those austerity measures which included cuts to public libraries, CUNY and the citys Department of Social Services, among other agencies sparked a loud and sustained backlash from City Council members and advocates, who contended that including them in the final, adopted budget would ultimately harm the citys long-term health.

The mayors proposed $36.2 million cut to libraries has been particularly contentious, but that reduction will be reversed as part of the final agreement announced Thursday. According to sources involved in the negotiations, the mayors team only relented on the library cuts after Council negotiators threatened to walk away and force talks to extend beyond Saturdays budget deadline.

The front of the Main Branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Ave. in Manhattan is pictured on Thursday, September 22, 2022. (Ted Shaffrey/AP)

Both the mayor and speaker alluded to the tensions that pervaded the budget negotiations during their press conference in the City Hall Rotunda on Thursday afternoon. In a reference to the New York Yankees stellar pitching performance the night before, Mayor Adams said the process was not a perfect game.

The Council speaker made clear repeatedly it is not an ideal budget from her members point of view, either. At one point during Thursdays announcement, she went so far as to say that the city couldnt afford the type of counterproductive budgeting approach employed by the mayors administration during this years talks.

We could talk for hours about the things that were not accomplished in this budget, she said, standing next to the mayor. The budget is passing right now, but this is a bittersweet moment for this Council.

After that comment, the mayor stepped in to say the cuts are painful for him, too, but blamed the need for them on the citys costly migrant crisis.

It hurts us to know that we lost $1.4 billion that we could have put into some of these problems that we are talking about, he said, referencing the the migrant-related cost incurred by the city over the past year.

Mayor Eric Adams listens as New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams speaks at City Hall on Thursday. (ED REED/Mayoral Photography Office)

According to Adams budget director, Jacques Jiha, the outyear deficits for the city continue to balloon amid the migrant crisis. The projected deficit for fiscal year 2027 is now at $7.9 billion $900 million more than what was estimated just a few months ago, according to Jiha.

Andrew Rein, president of the fiscally hawkish Citizens Budget Commission, said Thursdays budget agreement could be dangerous, given the dark fiscal horizon described by Jiha.

It is essentially a one-year budget that again unfortunately delays the wise but hard choices needed to stabilize the citys fiscal future, Rein said.

Advocates have pressed the mayor to invest more money to fund legal services, specifically for so-called right-to-counsel lawyers representing tenants in eviction cases and immigrants attempting to navigate the complicated asylum application process.

Councilman Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan) said under the new budget an additional $20 million will be baselined toward right-to-counsel lawyers and another $10 million would go to public defenders annually and that the total allotment in the next fiscal year will grow by $46 million.

In addition to reversing the library cuts, the budget agreement peels back the mayors proposed $40 million city funding reduction for cultural institutions like museums, and it will also partially restore a cut the mayor sought to a Department of the Aging program providing meals for older adults.

Mayor Adams had pushed for a $12 million cut in the 2024 fiscal year for the senior meals program. That cut has been reduced to $5 million.

Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan, and members of the New York City Council announce an agreement for a budget for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) at City Hall on Thursday, June 29, 2023. (ED REED/Mayoral Photography Office)

On the education front, the mayors team advocated for a $41 million funding shave for the City University of New York for the next fiscal year. The budget deal undoes $32.4 million of that cut.

Adams proposed $17 million cut to social services forr Rikers Island inmates will not be restored in next years budget, though. The citys Department of Correction, which the mayor ultimately oversees, has said it can provide the same services in-house but Council members and nonprofit providers have strongly pushed back, arguing that inmates would suffer under the cut.

The program being cut helps recently-released inmates with finding jobs and housing, as well as accessing social services. Asked why he thinks that funding should be scrapped, Mayor Adams said its because all of those services we can do internally.

Its the wrong thing to do to have city employees and then have a whole host of consultants, Adams said. Its an insult to city employees.

Jacques Jiha, Director of the New York City Mayor's Office of Management (left) and Mayor Eric Adams are pictured at City Hall on Thursday. (ED REED/Mayoral Photography Office)

Two Council sources noted that the lawmaking body intends to pursue legislation in the coming weeks that would help restore such funding on a more permanent basis.

A cost of living adjustment, or COLA, for nonprofit workers providing social services support to the city is baked into the budget framework as well.

The COLA is a $40 million increase over current levels for the next fiscal year, bringing the total baselined funding to $100 million. That baseline will be brought up to $150 million in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the budget deal.

The COLA is smaller than some stakeholders had hoped for, though.

Democratic Council members and social services nonprofits had advocated for at least a $100 million increase in this fiscal year, arguing that anything less wouldnt be enough to make workers whole at a time of surging costs of living in the city.

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NYC's new $107B budget deal will include $4 billion annually for ... - New York Daily News