20% Cut To NYC Migrant Spending Needed To Avoid ‘Serious Fiscal Harm'

NEW YORK CITY, NY - New York City will need to cut its spending on asylum seekers by one-fifth to avoid “serious fiscal harm" to the Big Apple, the mayor’s budget chief wrote in a memo dated Monday.

In the memo, first shared by The New York Times’ Dana Rubenstein via X, New York City’s Budget Director Jacques Jiha demanded a 20% cut to FY2024 and FY2025 asylum-seeker expenses aimed at reducing per-diem costs and the length of shelter stays in order to keep the city's already-strapped budget afloat. The budget slashing will be led by the Office of Asylum Seeker Operations and the Office of Management and Budget, per the memo.

The spending cut comes as the city attempts to keep the FY2024 and FY2025 preliminary budgets balanced amid "unprecedented" budgetary issues involving the influx of asylum seekers seeking refuge in New York City, Jiha wrote.

Nearly 66,000 migrants are currently in the city’s care, Jiha noted, bringing the total number of asylum seekers who have come through the intake system since last spring to nearly 143,000. While the city added $6.2 billion in funds to the FY24 and FY25 plan in November to cover housing and related costs for migrants, gaps in future years’ financials have “expanded to high levels” of $7.1 billion in FY25, $6.5 billion in FY26 and $6.4 billion in FY27, Jiha said.“The asylum seeker humanitarian crisis remains unabated and migrant arrival rates continue to exceed our adopted budget forecast."

“We have repeatedly communicated to the federal and state governments that the city, as a municipality with limited fiscal tools, cannot shoulder this financial burden alone,” Jiha added. “While we are grateful that New York State has committed close to $1.8 billion in direct and indirect assistance to the city, the Hochul administration recently indicated that state support cannot continue at the current level without risking service reductions to New Yorkers and threatening the state’s ability to balance its budget.”

The state has since signaled plans to limit asylum seeker services such as legal services, case management and job placement “as opposed to costly housing and shelter needs,” Jiha wrote, a move that could prove disastrous for a city that has already planned for the state to cover a third of the Big Apple’s total asylum seeker expenses.

At the same time, the city is racing to close an “unprecedented” $7.1 billion budget gap “in the face of substantial funding uncertainties,” Jiha wrote, adding additional cuts to police, fire and sanitation departments are exempted from a program to eliminate the budgetary gap “out of concern that additional budget cuts at this time could impact public safety, health and cleanliness.”

All city agencies have been instructed to submit their budget slashing proposals by Dec. 8, according to the Monday memo. Layoffs are barred from being included in any agency’s plans, which should "avoid meaningfully impacting services where possible."

“This was not easy, but we had to implement tough, albeit necessary, measures to avoid serious fiscal harm to a city that is dealing with an unprecedented national humanitarian crisis, with little financial assistance from the federal government,” Jiha wrote.

“It is clear, though, that we must do more. The city cannot sustain asylum seeker care expenses at current levels and, at the same time, maintain city services and keep the city safe and clean.”

The budget tightening comes on the heels of significant cuts announced Thursday for the NYPD, libraries and sanitation, among other city agencies. The Department of Education is expected to shave off over $1 billion over the next two fiscal years, while the city's three public library systems will end Sunday service at the "vast majority of branches" by mid-December. Read more: 'Death By A Thousand Cuts': Libraries, NYPD Face New Budget Slashes

A hiring freeze for the NYPD could send the department plummeting to its lowest number since the mid-1990s, eliminating the next five classes, according to city hall officials.

Related: Cardi B Says NYC Budget Cut Will Send Crime Soaring, Raccoons Twerking

City hall officials and Mayor Eric Adams continue to attribute much of the city's financial strife to spending on services for asylum seekers, reporting an unexpected $11 billion in added expenditures over the next two fiscal years.

Adams was recently in Washington D.C. to discuss possible financial help from the federal government to help the city through a crisis that he has repeatedly said "will destroy New York City," but before any meetings took place, he hopped back on a plane to return to New York City when a crisis of his own unfolded, regarding a FBI probe into his 2021 mayoral campaign.

In a Thursday statement, Comptroller Brad Lander said he found the Mayor's characterization of recent asylum seekers as untrue and unfair when it comes to the numbers.

"City Hall should stop suggesting that asylum seekers are the reason for imposing severe cuts when they are only contributing to a portion of these budget gaps, much of which already existed," Lander said.
The New York Working Families Party also took issue with Adams attributing the painful cuts to asylum seekers, and emphasized the strain such sweeping cuts could have on New York City families.

"Mayor Adams is pursuing an agenda of death by a thousand cuts," said Jasmine Gripper and Ana María Archila, co-directors of the party.
"At a time when half of NYC households can't afford the cost of living, we should be stepping up our investments in working communities, not defunding the services they rely on."

-With reporting by Emily Rahhal.