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COMMUNITY OP-ED MAY 10, 2024 | The Indian Eye 14

Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget:

Getting Stuff Done for Working-

Class New Yorkers

magnitude of the challenges we faced,
and the severity of the crisis we would
have had to address had we failed to
act decisively and with an eye for what
is best for the city in the long term.
I am proud to report that, as a
result of all our good work, not only
have shootings and homicides con-
tinued to drop by double digits across
the city, but overall crime is down in
our city year to date, with month after
month decreases.
And our work with so many of our
local businesses has helped our city
ERIC ADAMS not only recover all of the private-sec-
tor jobs we lost during the pandemic,
a year earlier than projected, but with
or over two years, cities across over 300,000 new jobs created under
the country have struggled to
Frespond to the aftereffects of this administration, we now have
more total jobs than ever before in
the COVID-19 pandemic. In New Not only have shootings and homicides continued to drop by double digits across the city, but
York City, slowing tax revenue growth our city’s history.
We are also tackling major qual-
combined with low office occupancy overall crime is down in NYC year to date, with month after month decreases (File/Agency photo)
rates, and the expiration of tempo- ity of life issues by containerizing
business and residential trash, and
rary federal stimulus dollars have put maintaining critical services, institut- by keeping nearly 500 mental health reducing the amount of time garbage
a strain on our city’s budget. At the ed agency savings, and more. professionals in our schools. It also is allowed to sit on the curb. Addition-
same time, as we all know only too As a result of our strong fiscal means increasing resources for special
well, the pandemic exposed cracks in management and decisive action, as education Pre-K programs by expand- ally, we have financed the most newly
constructed affordable housing in a
education, health care, and housing well as stronger-than-expected tax ing occupational, speech, and physical single year in our city’s history, won
that urgently need to be addressed, revenues, our city’s financial outlook therapy for our most vulnerable young approval of the historic Willets Point
and we faced costs related to settling has stabilized. We balanced the bud- New Yorkers; maintaining vital arts Transformation to build the larg-
long-expired labor contracts with our get, as required by law, without major programs; and our popular bilingual est 100 percent affordable housing
dedicated municipal workforce. And service disruptions, layoffs, or a single programs. Additionally, we are con- project in 40 years, and our “City of
in the midst of all these challenges, cent in tax hikes. ducting more outreach so that par- Yes” plan to update decades-old zon-
we have been tasked with managing Alongside being fiscally responsi- ents and caregivers know about seats ing laws before the City Council will
a substantial influx of individuals and ble, we also have achieved major wins for 3-K and Pre-K programs. Further, make it easier to build the housing
families seeking asylum. for working-class people. We sup- many of these educational programs our city urgently needs. Further, Al-
New York City saw the warning ported cost-of-living-adjustments for are now funded with recurring dollars,
signs early. We saw that if we didn’t 80,000 human services workers — pri- so they are protected year after year. bany recently passed all of our afford-
take fast and decisive action, a perfect marily women and women of color — We have enhanced public safety able housing initiatives in the state
budget — putting us one step closer
storm resulting in a multi-billion-dol- so that they can raise a family in New and doubled down on our efforts to
lar budget gap would be very difficult York City. We recently launched Jobs continue to bring down shootings by to our moonshot goal of building a
half a million new affordable homes
to navigate out of. We knew we had NYC, a whole-of-government ap- homicides by putting 1,200 more po- for New Yorkers.
to make tough decisions and that our proach to bring job and career train- lice officers on the streets and in our While we still face challenges, be-
choices would not always be popular, ing opportunities to long-overlooked subways with two additional NYPD cause we put ourselves in a more stable
but that they would be the right thing communities by holding hiring halls classes. And all academy classes are
to do. That is because we understood and launching an online job search now fully funded in 2024, which put fiscal position, we can continue to invest
in the needs of everyday New Yorkers.
that not making these hard choices portal that are connecting job seekers us on the path to having a total of As New York City moves toward the
would be worse for working-class with prospective employers. 35,000 uniformed officers protecting future, our core values will continue
New Yorkers and the long-term sta- And we have been able to protect New Yorkers in the coming years. to guide us. We will continue to build
bility of our city. over half-a-billion dollars in critical, The safest big city in America is get- a safer, more equitable, and more
So, we did what we needed to do permanent education programs that ting even safer.
to manage our way out of the storm. had been funded by federal stimulus This all puts us back on track to eco- prosperous city for all New Yorkers.
We implemented policies to reduce dollars. These include ongoing sup- nomic and social prosperity — which Eric Adams is the Mayor of
the costs of asylum seeker care while port for our students’ mental health is no small accomplishment given the New York City, NY

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