"Best Budget Ever" Gets Even Better: Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams Reach Handshake Agreement for Responsible, Balanced, and On-Time Fiscal Year 2026 Budget That Invests in Public Safety, Affordability and Quality of Life

June 27, 2025

Watch video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBaU3TJWRhw

Builds on Investments Made in Mayor Adams’ “Best Budget Ever” to Protect
$1.4 Billion in Critical Programs Previously Facing Spending Cliffs; Maintain Funding to
CUNY, Cultural Institutions, Libraries; Launch Landmark “After School for All” Program;
Keep New York City on Path to 35,000 Uniformed Officers by Fall of 2026

FY 2026 Budget Marks First-Ever Budget That Abolishes New York City
Personal Income Tax for Low-Income Filers, Thanks to Mayor Adams’ “Axe the Tax” Plan,
Will Put $63 Million Back into Pockets of Over 582,000 Filers and Dependents

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan, members of the City Council, and senior members of the Adams administration today announced an agreement to build on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Executive Budget — often called the “Best Budget Ever.” The on-time, balanced, and fiscally responsible $115.9 billion Adopted Budget for FY 2026 prioritizes investments that will make New York City a safer, more affordable city that is the best place to raise a family, and — for the first-time ever — next fiscal year, New York City personal income taxes for eligible low-income New Yorkers will be abolished. Thanks to ongoing careful fiscal management, including remaining focused on saving taxpayer dollars and strong revenue performance due to a robust New York City economy, the administration overcame unprecedented challenges in this budget cycle to manage the budget responsibly, support essential services, and make upstream investments that will benefit New Yorkers for generations to come.

The agreement today adds to the substantial investments made as part of Mayor Adams’ Best Budget Ever, which has already seen major investments in the creation of “After-School for All,” a $755-million plan to deliver universal after-school programming to families of children in kindergarten through eighth grade; baselining funding for 3-K citywide expansion and special education pre-K to build on the administration’s work to dramatically expand access to early childhood education; capital investments that include allocating $24.7 billion towards affordable housing through the city’s 10-Year Capital Plan; investing over $400 million to fully fund the transformation of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan into a world-class, pedestrian-centered boulevard; and revitalizing “The Arches,” the public space on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. This budget is also the first to implement Mayor Adams’ landmark “Axe the Tax for the Working Class” plan, which abolishes New York City's personal income tax for filers with dependents living at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line. Because of this plan, which the Adams administration successfully fought to pass in Albany this budget cycle, $63 million will go back into the pockets of over 582,000 low-income New York filers, including their dependents, helping make New York City more affordable for working-class families.

“We are excited to announce that the ‘Best Budget Ever’ has gotten even better,” said Mayor Adams. “Once again, our administration is proud to have worked with City Council Speaker Adams and the whole City Council to successfully deliver a responsible, on-time, and balanced Fiscal Year 2026 Adopted Budget that prioritizes public safety, affordability, and improved quality of life for all New Yorkers. This $115.9 billion budget builds on our work to protect $1.4 billion in critical programs facing stimulus cliffs; maintains funding for our flagship institutions like CUNY, cultural institutions, and libraries; launches our landmark ‘After School for All’ program by investing more money in free universal after-school programming, and keeps our city on a path to 35,000 uniformed officers by fall of 2026. Today, we are proud to announce new initiatives that invest in our legal support for some of our most vulnerable neighbors, including New York City Public Schools’ immigrant students and families. This budget also invests in making our city more affordable and livable by supporting our minority-and-women-owned businesses, launching the Division of Sustainable Delivery to regulate e-bikes, launching a pilot program to provide childcare for infants and toddlers through two-years-of-age, and stabilizing school budgets so no school receives less funding despite enrollment drops. Next fiscal year will also be the first time our ‘Axe the Tax’ plan will be in effect, putting $63 million back in the pockets of 582,000 low-income New Yorkers and their families. Because of our strong fiscal management, our economy is robust, and we are able to make smart investments that help us achieve our mission of making New York City a safer, more affordable city that is the best place to raise a family.”

“The Council is proud to reach an agreement with Mayor Adams to deliver a city budget that takes critical steps forward to invest in the needs of New Yorkers and our city’s neighborhoods,” said Speaker Adams. “The Fiscal Year 2026 Adopted Budget will invest in expanded childcare for working families, more seven-day library service, greater support for older adult services, maternal and mental health care, and proven public safety programs to reduce recidivism and help advance the closure of Rikers. This budget agreement is the product of the Council’s consistent and relentless budget advocacy, alongside the people of our city and stakeholders, to deepen investments in the health, safety, and prosperity of all New Yorkers. I thank my colleagues in the Council for our unwavering commitment and collective work to secure the resources our communities and constituents deserve.”

Keeping New Yorkers Safe and Improving Quality of Life

Since taking office, the Adams administration has invested in safer streets and communities. As part of this work, the city has launched a $500 million blueprint to keep communities safe from gun violence, surged police officers into the subways multiple times to help reduce crime in the transit system, released plans to crack down on auto thefts and combat retail thefts, hired additional mental health clinicians to support people with untreated severe mental illness and announced plans to pilot new technology in the subways, expanded the "Saturday Night Lights" youth program to keep young people safe and engaged, and supported a record 100,000 summer job opportunities annually for young people. To get more NYPD officers on city streets, Mayor Adams recently announced that, combined with expanded eligibility requirements, the administration is putting the NYPD on a path to having 35,000 uniformed police officers by the fall of 2026. In April 2025, Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch launched the NYPD’s Quality of Life Division, a citywide public safety initiative focused on enhancing trust between communities and the police while addressing everyday issues that impact New Yorkers’ sense of safety and well-being, which will be expanding to all five boroughs. The FY 2026 Adopted Budget further makes New York City safer and improves quality of life by:

• Increasing funding for programs that provide free legal assistance to immigrants, including representation for those facing deportation and assistance with applications for various immigration benefits ($41.9 million).
• Funding for pro-bono attorneys that assist unaccompanied minor immigrants in removal proceedings ($12.5 million).
• Providing the city’s district attorneys with funding to support their critical work to keep communities safe. These funds will provide operational support and additional staff to address gang, youth, and domestic violence, as well as improve forensic analysis to support legal proceedings ($12.1 million).
• Funding for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to hire more than 170 additional parks enforcement patrol officers, gardeners, and city park workers to help keep parks safe and clean ($10.2 million).
• Creating the Division of Sustainable Delivery within the New York City Department of Transportation to regulate commercial e-bikes, including 60 positions for regulation and enforcement ($6.1 million at full ramp-up).
• Funding to help local Business Improvement Districts purchase sanitation bins with secure lids to assist in Mayor Adams’ Trash Revolution, the citywide effort to move trash from black bags on the sidewalk to rat-resistant, closed containers ($5 million).
• Supporting the 988 crisis intervention and suicide prevention lifeline ($5 million).
• Expanding the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative — a vital citywide initiative that provides emergency legal support to New York City Public Schools students, children, and their families at imminent risk of detention, deportation, or family separation. The expanded funding for the program — run by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs in partnership with the New York City Department of Social Services — will allow the collaborative to scale its operations and deepen its impact, ensuring more families across the five boroughs can access critical legal protections during times of crisis ($2 million).
• Supporting “Project Restore,” a community-based gang violence intervention program that addresses barriers to personal growth, including economic insecurity, disconnection from education and employment, a lack of role models, and unhealed trauma ($2 million).
• Funding for the Office of the City Clerk, including support for “Project Cupid,” which allows couples to virtually access marriage licenses ($1.75 million).
• Funding for 10 positions at the New York City Emergency Management Department to enhance the city’s preparedness for emergencies ($900,000).
• Adding staff at the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services with the addition of nine new staff members to expand the department’s mission to ensure that every veteran in New York City receives the recognition, support, and services they earned. This strategic expansion will enhance the agency’s capacity to connect more veterans and their families to critical services across New York City. The new positions will include benefits advisors, housing coordinators, outreach specialists, and burial support staff — ensuring a more robust and accessible network of care for those who have served ($680,000).
• Funding to equip the New York City Department of Sanitation police officers in the Vending Enforcement Unit with body-worn camera equipment ($260,000).
• Providing low-barrier microgrants to survivors of domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence to help them maintain safe and stable housing ($1.2 million).
• Funding to create the South Bronx Community Justice Center, which will provide programming for gun violence prevention initiatives, crisis intervention, and high school equivalency education ($2 million). 
• Funding to provide legal services for domestic violence survivors in divorce proceedings ($2 million).
• Funding for multiple criminal justice initiatives to increase the number of justice-involved supportive housing units; expand the number of Intensive Mobile Treatment teams, which provide support to individuals with severe mental illness; and expand the capacity of the electronic monitoring program, which allows for people to remain in their communities. Funding will also provide additional comprehensive support for individuals with severe mental illness through expanded Assertive Community Treatment services; develop additional Crisis Respite Centers, which provide support to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis; and provide additional resources for Alternatives to Incarceration services and Reentry support ($32.4 million).
• Funding to increase the operating support for the city’s Cultural Institutions Group and provide additional funding for Cultural Development Fund grants ($30 million).

Making New York City More Affordable for Working-Class People

Following several back-to-back years of shattering affordable housing records, Mayor Adams recently announced new investments to create more homes, connect more New Yorkers to homes, and keep more New Yorkers in the homes they have These investments build on the administration’s successful housing record, which led the effort to pass Mayor Adams’ historic “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” plan, the most pro-housing proposal in New York City history that will create 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years. Through the administration’s neighborhood rezonings and City of Yes, the city is projected to create 30 percent more units of housing in less than four years than in the previous 20 years and the last two mayoral administrations combined. The Adams administration has successfully advocated for the first expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has already put over $345 million back in the pockets of hard-working New Yorkers and their families. This upcoming fiscal year will be the first time eligible New Yorkers will benefit from the Adams administration’s “Axe the Tax” plan, which abolishes personal income tax for families with children living at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line. This will put $63 million into the pockets of 582,000 fliers and their dependents. The FY 2026 Adopted Budget builds on these achievements by making key investments that make New York City more affordable for working-class people, including by:

• Ensuring access to high-quality early childhood education, especially for the city’s most vulnerable children, through funding childcare vouchers administered through the New York City Administration for Children Services after changes at the state level to the wildly successful program ($229 million).
• Ongoing support for over 700 food pantries across the city ($15 million)
• Launching a pilot program to provide childcare for infants and toddlers through two-years-of-age ($10 million).
• Supporting The City University of New York (CUNY) Reconnect program, which re-engages adults who have some college credit but have not received a degree or who were admitted but never enrolled, and provides personalized support to help achieve their educational and career goals ($7.8 million).
• Increasing ‘NYC Fair Fares’ funding to support New Yorkers up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($5 million).
• Backfilling funding for the federal AmeriCorps service program that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The program was previously funded by a grant from AmeriCorps; the city is exploring ways to create a new, New York City-funded program. ($3.2 million).
• Adding funding to support library operations across the three public library systems on top of the funding already allocated in the Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget ($17 million).
• Funding to explore the establishment of a city-supported insurance program to assist newly certified construction Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises that tend to be burdened by high insurance costs ($2 million).
• Funding to continue peer and housing navigators who assist runaway and homeless youth with safe and permanent housing placements ($3.2 million).

Implementing a Bold Vision for Educating Young People

To make New York City more affordable and the best place to raise a family, the Adams administration has announced key investments in initiatives that help students thrive both in and outside of the classroom and improve education outcomes, including launching “After-School for All” that will bring universal after-school to New York City, adding 20,000 new K-5 seats over the next three school years (by the fall of 2027) and bringing the total number of students served by universal after-school to 184,000. Additionally, the FY 2026 Executive Budget included hiring of up to 3,700 new teachers across the public school system to reduce class sizes and provide more individualized care to students; funding to support over 700 early childhood education seats for three- and four-year-olds in special education, ensuring every 3-K student will be offered a seat; investments in Promise NYC, which provides child care to undocumented children and their families who are not eligible for federally-subsidized extended day and extended year child care; and expanding support for the Intensive Reading Education and Development program for early literacy and dyslexia. In the FY 2026 Adopted Budget, the administration and City Council continue their commitment to achievement in the city’s public schools by:

• Investing $128 million to stabilize school budgets, holding school budgets harmless to ensure that no school will receive less funding in their initial allocations for the upcoming school year than they did this past school year, despite any drops in enrollment that may occur. This stability allows school leaders to plan confidently, retain staff, and provide uninterrupted support and services that are critical to student success ($128 million).
• Funding to support special education pre-k students who require occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, or other related services. This investment also supports the infrastructure to provide evaluations and placements more effectively ($70 million).
• Helping to meet the class size mandate for FY 2026 by providing an additional $20 million in funding, which brings the support for class size reduction to more than $400 million annually as of FY 2026. This investment builds on the $150 million already allocated in the FY 2026 Executive Budget, as well as funding provided through the state’s enacted Contracts for Excellence program. Together, these resources demonstrate the city’s ongoing commitment to improving classroom conditions and supporting student learning across the five boroughs ($20 million).
• Launching a pilot program to provide childcare for infants and toddlers through two-years-of-age ($10 million).
• Providing support for student success centers, which assist high school students with the college admissions process and college readiness through partnerships between community-based organizations and multi-school campuses ($3.3 million.
• Providing new, grade-specific backpacks and school supplies to students experiencing homelessness who are enrolled in New York City Public Schools through “Operation Backpack” ($250,000).

Investing in Transformative Generational Projects

The Adams administration has ushered in transformative generational projects, including progress at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal to redevelop the 122-acre site and create thousands of jobs; the Willets Point Transformation, which will deliver more than 2,500 affordable homes, roughly 150,000 square feet of new public open space, a new public school, over 20,000 square feet of retail space, a new 250-key hotel, and a soccer stadium that will be the permanent home of the New York City Football Club; and the completion of the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, which includes $235 million in community investments, infrastructure upgrades, and open space. The FY 2026 Adopted Budget builds on these achievements by making key investments, such as:

• Funding to complete a required environmental impact study of the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resiliency Project. This critical step moves the project closer to development and underscores the Adams administration’s dedication to advancing environmentally-responsible infrastructure that protects vulnerable waterfront communities while aligning with the city’s broader climate and sustainability goals ($3 million).
• Funding to commission a redevelopment design study to evaluate economic development opportunities and public space improvements on 14th Street in Manhattan to be funded through a public-private partnership ($1 million).

Keeping New York City on the Path of Strong Fiscal Management

The City of New York faced significant challenges in this budget cycle, including supporting the cost of the humanitarian crisis, the need to address budget cliffs due to expiring stimulus dollars that had been used to fund long-term programs, and the need to backfill unfunded state mandates.

Further, the city faces global economic uncertainties due to trade policies and geopolitical tensions, the prospect of federal funding cuts, and new unfunded state mandates. Despite challenges and headwinds, through strong fiscal management and with the benefit of a strong economy, the administration balanced the budget and had the resources to make investments that build on this administration’s key priorities of public safety, affordability, and quality of life.

The $115.9 billion FY 2026 budget is balanced with a combination of savings and increased revenues. Outyear gaps are $5 billion, $6.1 billion, and $6 billion in Fiscal Years 2027 through 2029, respectively. Growth of about $815 million in FY 2026 over the Executive Budget is driven by tax revenue and grant funding.

Projected tax revenues were adjusted upward over the Executive Budget by $617 million across FY 2025 and FY 2026. However, the city must remain cautious as tax revenue growth is expected to slow in financial plan outyears.

The Adams administration remains focused on saving taxpayer dollars. Total citywide savings in this plan are $976 million over FY 2025 and FY 2026, and were achieved without service cuts, layoffs, or raising taxes. This includes asylum seeker savings of $113 million in FY 2025 and $250 million in FY 2026.

Maintaining budget reserves as a safeguard against the unexpected is a critical part of the Adams administration’s strong financial management strategy. The FY 2026 Adopted Budget maintains a record level $8.5 billion in reserves, including $1.2 billion in the General Reserve, $5 billion in the Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund, $250 million in the Capital Stabilization Reserve, and a record level of $2 billion in the Rainy-Day Fund. 

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