NEW YORK (PIX11) – The City Council's first 2025 preliminary budget hearing is set for Monday, and it’s expected the city will get more money from tax revenue than originally anticipated.
City Council’s Finance Committee believes the city will receive $3.3 billion more in tax revenue over the next two years than previously projected. Those projections will be at the forefront of the upcoming budget meeting.
The city is expected to have a budget surplus of $1.3 billion this year. Next year, the surplus will be $3.5 billion, according to officials.
City Councilmember Justin Brannan believes the projections are correct and due to the city’s resilient economy. He adds previous budget cuts announced by Mayor Eric Adams should be eliminated.
"From 3K to CUNY, libraries, and our cultural sector, stronger than expected tax revenues allow us to restore the blunt cuts that weren’t necessary in the first place. Economic uncertainty, uneven employment growth, and a durable but slow burning recovery makes it critical to adequately prepare our city for potential challenges. It’s vital that we continue prioritizing essential and targeted investments that promote health, safety, and opportunity for all New Yorkers," Brannan said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for City Hall said, "Despite facing a perfect fiscal storm that included a multi-billion-dollar budget gap driven by an asylum seeker crisis, the sunsetting of COVID-19 federal stimulus funding, and the cost of inherited outstanding labor costs, the Adams administration was able to make the strong fiscal decisions to navigate us to prosperity. The administration’s tough but necessary fiscal management decisions, including achieving a record level of savings and reducing asylum seeker costs, and revenue from better-than-expected economic performance in 2023, closed the $10 billion budget gap, allowing us to meet our legal obligation to balance the budget. Multiple internationally-recognized, independent experts agree that our robust fiscal management stabilized the budget and improved the city’s economic and fiscal outlook, and even the state comptroller recently recognized the city’s improved economic and fiscal outlook under our watch."
The upcoming hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. The hearings will go from Monday to March 25.
Erin Pflaumer is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered both local and national news since 2018. She joined PIX11 in 2023. See more of her work here.