Bloomy Days are Here Again: NYC Budget Deal Stiffs Lowest-Paid Workers
The behind-the-scenes budget negotiations between NYC Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council were framed by the mayor’s refusal to raise taxes on the top one-percent of earners. Photo by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
By Bob Hennelly
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on June 30
Mayor Adams and the City Council have reached a “handshake” agreement on a $107 billion budget that restores some of the controversial cuts that were proposed by the administration as it grappled with the fiscal fallout from the pandemic, the nation’s immigration crisis, and the end of federal COVID aid.
The behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Mayor and City Council were framed by the mayor’s refusal to raise taxes on the top one-percent of earners as suggested by City Comptroller Brad Lander in a report he issued in May.
In their June 29 City Hall press conference both Mayor Adams and Speaker Adriene Adams expressed frustration with what they saw as the lack of support from the federal government in helping with the influx of tens of thousands of undocumented migrants being sent to New York City by Republican border states.
The political weaponizing of migrants has proven a potent wedge issue which the city estimates has already cost municipal taxpayers $1.4 billion to address, and close to $4 billion going forward requiring cuts to other city agencies.
“New York is taking on the burden of the nation and it is tremendously unfair to the people of the City of New York, yet we still have our arms open,” City Council Speaker Adriene Adams told reporters.
“This is painful for all of us,” Mayor Adams said addressing the collateral budget impacts of having to feed and shelter 81,000 migrants from Central and South America. “No child or family are sleeping on the streets of New York City,” he said.
Lander blasted the budget compromise.
“The Administration wields the high cost of providing shelter for asylum seekers as a rationale for belt tightening yet did not provide significant funding for urgent legal assistance that would significantly reduce the City’s long-term costs,” he wrote in a statement. “City Hall announced a plan to connect asylum seekers with pro bono legal support to apply for status and work authorization, but this budget does not allocate meaningful dollars to scale up legal services that will help people gain employment, exit the shelter system, and contribute to our local economy. This is a shortsighted approach to a pressing budget and human issue.”
The unionized workers perhaps closest to the municipal budget process, the Association of Legislative Employees that represent 400 City Council staffers, also weighed in
“ALE recognizes the tremendous work and time that the New York City Council’s unionized Financial Analysts and Council Member Aides have put into delivering another balanced, on-time City budget,” the union said in a statement. “These workers perform essential public services but are still waiting for a fair union contract that eliminates poverty wages and curbs persistently high turnover.”
ALE continued, “The Council’s own budget for next year includes $100 million, the same as the current year and the highest it has ever been. In the previous two fiscal years, with smaller budgets, the Council underspent by an average of $9.5 million. ALE’s key demand – to institute a living wage floor of $75,000 for all staff – would cost $5.2 million, which could be funded through underspending alone. The same is true of efforts to reduce turnover with a retention bonus, and respect multilingual staff with a salary differential, which together cost approximately $1 million. With the cost-of-living skyrocketing, and the budget process at a close, the Council should lead from the front in supporting a contract with fair pay for its own workers and their families.”
The FY 2024 municipal budget is $3 billion larger than last year’s and predicts significant out year red ink with close to an $8 billion budget hole three years from now, a projection that’s grown by almost a billion dollars just since earlier this year.
The final budget also includes $8 billion in reserves and reflects new labor contracts with the UFT, DC 37, as well as 11 uniform union, roughly three quarters of the city’s active workforce. It also relies on hundreds of millions the city still insists will be realized by pushing 250,000 retired city workers out of traditional Medicare to a profit-driven Aetna Medicare Advantage program.
“Our mission is not to simply save money — it is to set priorities, which include fair labor contracts for our unions, funding for education, the arts, and our libraries, and support for New Yorkers in the greatest need,” Mayor Adams said.
New York City Council Speaker Adriene Adams, meanwhile, heralded the “full restoration of the proposed cuts to the City’s library systems” and “the funding for education programs for New Yorkers of all ages, from early childhood education to higher education.”
The City Council succeeded in moving the spending needle on expanding access to the Fair Fares [MTA] program, increasing funding for anti-eviction legal services, as well as funding for wage increases for contracted human service employees.
It was also successful in holding Mayor Adams to his campaign trail commitment of spending $4 billion for affordable housing.
But multi-million-dollar cuts to significant city services to the most vulnerable were sustained, including the mayor’s $12 million cut to the city’s seniors feeding program, of which the City Council rolled back by $5 million.
“THIS BUDGET IS NOT GOOD, AND IT IS NOT JUST”
In a statement, the Professional Staff Congress, which represents 40,000 employees of the City University of New York (CUNY) thanked the City Council for its intervention in the proposed cuts by Mayor Adams that “would have dramatically compounded years of city cuts to community colleges.”
“Even with these much-needed restorations, the Mayor’s Program to Eliminate the Gap cuts over the last two years have left CUNY on a dangerous path and undermined students’ success,” PSC-CUNY tweeted. “Since 2020, city funded community colleges have lost 300 full-time faculty and staff.”
While Mayor Adams touted his success in reaching contract deals with the city’s largest and most powerful unions, his neo-Bloomberg austerity approach to budgeting built up city reserves at the expense of tens of thousands of low-wage workers employed by the city’s non-profit service providers.
The Human Services Council (HSC) represents the non-profit social service contractors that employ 125,000 workers in the human services sector.
“The agreement falls well short of the #JustPay movement’s demands. HSC and others had demanded a 6.5 percent Cost of Living Adjustment and a multi-year deal of 16.5 percent to match the number of recently announced union deals, HSC said in a statement. “Last month, HSC gathered thousands of workers to rally for #JustPay. And earlier this month, 50 nonprofit executives stayed up all night outside of City Hall to demand Mayor Adams stand up for this sector.”
HSC’s statement continued, “Human services workers are some of the lowest-paid workers in New York City, despite the importance of their services during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing migrant crisis. Eight in ten human services workers in New York City are people of color, and 60 percent of them qualify for at least one form of government assistance.”
“This budget is not good, and it is not just,” said Michelle Jackson, executive director of the Human Services Council. “Almost two-thirds of our workforce lives near poverty, and this agreement will not fundamentally change that — even though the mayor found plenty of money to give generous raises to other workers.”
Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who now runs WIN, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families, responded to the budget deal by saying, “Last night, a shocking 100,000 of our neighbors went to sleep in homeless shelters, including over 27,000 children. This is the worst homelessness crisis that New York City has ever seen, and it is unquestionably a humanitarian emergency. I applaud Speaker Adams and the Mayor for dedicating $4 billion to build affordable housing, but until the full details are released, the impact this investment will have on homelessness is unclear. The city must build housing for the lowest-income New Yorkers and for those exiting shelter — anything less is merely paying lip service to this crisis.”
Quinn’s statement continued, “At the same time, cutting contracts with homeless services providers and including just a 1.35% cost of living increase for our staff members will only serve to undermine New York’s social safety net. Because of these actions, fewer New Yorkers will be working to help our homeless neighbors move out of shelter — keeping families in shelter longer and costing New York City more in the long run. This lack of investment in families experiencing homelessness, 97 percent of which are headed by people of color, and the human services workforce, which is 55 percent women of color, will further entrench historical racial injustices.”
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On June 30 the City Council voted 39 to 12 to support the budget deal. The City Council Members that voted 'NO' were Alexa Aviles (D-38 Dist.), Charles Barron (D-42 Dist.), Tiffany Caban (D- 22 Dist.), Carmen De La Rosa (D-10 Dist.), Jennifer Gutierrez (D-34 Dist.), Shahana Hanif (D-39), Ari Kagan (R-47 Dist.), Christopher Marte (D-1 Dist.), Sandy Nurse (D-37 Dist.), Chris Osse (D-Dist.36), Sandy Nurse (D-37 Dist.), Kristen Richardson Jordan (D-9 Dist.).
In an interview with Work-Bites before the budget agreement was announced, Barron said the City Council should have played hardball with Mayor Adams holding out for full restoration.
"There's $3 billion in cuts to vital services in just about every agency and we are going to restore $250 million and 'shake hands' — we have a surplus not a deficit and we have $8.3 billion in a reserve account and $4 billion we didn't expect — why didn't the Council hold out for the $3 billion?" Barron asked.