On “Tin Cup Day,” Mayor Eric Adams begged the state for another $1.1 billion in migrant crisis aid after Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to allocate any new funding for the influx in her budget proposal last month.
Hizzoner, during his Feb. 4 testimony before state lawmakers for “Tin Cup Day” (an annual convergence of local officials from around the state who come to Albany to lobby for their priorities), said the city has already spent close to $7 billion on housing and otherwise providing for over 200,000 new arrivals for nearly three years. He added that his administration anticipates spending “billions more in the years to come.”
“While we appreciate the contribution the state has made, we know we have a gap of $1.1 billion budget shortfall from this program within 12 weeks we must fill,” Adams said, referring to the time by which he must present his executive budget proposal in late April.
According to Adams’ budget director, Jacques Jiha, the $1.1 billion shortfall comes from the money they assumed Hochul would doll out to the city her budget plan. Jiha factored that amount into the mayor’s preliminary budget, which he presented as balanced last month, only to find out shortly afterward that Hochul did not plan on ponying up the funds.
“We budgeted for about a billion [dollars] of state aid that we would be receiving, but currently, the [state] budget doesn’t have any resources at all for asylum seekers,” Jiha said.
Mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said Adams’ budget office assumed the governor would allocate that amount to the city because that is what it has given in past years.
“When we put out our budget, we said it was balanced, it was before the governor put out hers, and we were operating under the assumption that we would get the same amount that we did the previous cycle,” Mamelak Altus said.
“If we do not get that money, then we’ll have to backfill it in other ways,” she added.
During a news conference following his testimony, Adams told reporters he would make his case for the funding directly to Hochul in a Tuesday afternoon meeting.
“When you do the budget, you do the budget with those things that you believe you’re going to get, and we’re going to go up now, you know, and fight for them,” Adams said.
However, Hochul allocated $2.4 billion in migrant aid to the city last year, far short of the 50-50 split on newcomer costs that Adams had pushed for.
During the hearing, Jiha said the city is still submitting claims to get reimbursements from the state for the full $2.4 billion allocation from last year. He said the city has gotten $1 billion back from the state so far and has submitted claims for another $750 million.
Adams’ latest ask for state migrant aid comes only a few weeks after he took a victory lap in his preliminary budget rollout for reducing new arrival spending.
At the time, he attributed the $2.4 billion in savings over this fiscal year and the next to his administration’s 30- and 60-day shelter limits for migrants. Those policies, combined with restrictions on border crossings enacted last year, have reduced the migrant population in city shelters from its height of 69,000 in late 2023 to 46,000.
