The mayor’s new budget sees him making deals while trying to keep his promises.
Mayor Mamdani presents his FY27 executive budget at City Hall in May 2026.
(Ed Reed / Mayor’s Office of Photography) When we checked in for the last time With our young mayor, New York City was still $5.4 billion short of the balanced budget the city is required by law to submit by the end of June.
Even getting to this point, from the $12 billion fiscal cliff he discovered upon taking office, at least that’s what the mayor claimed in March—require a raid on funds the city is supposed to set aside for “rainy days.” And in the preliminary budget released in February, the mayor also threatened that if Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature did not allow the city to raise income taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers (which would require state permission), the city would be forced to raise property taxes (which is the only major tax the city can raise without permission from Albany). Like the mayor soon learnedthreatening to raise city taxes 1.1 million owners—many of whom are black and brownand almost all of whom are regular voters — was even more of a political failure than expecting the governor to support a tax increase while she runs for re-election.
And yet, there we were Wednesday in the ornate Blue Room of City Hall, watching Mayor Mamdani, Chief Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and Budget Director Sherif Soliman take a victory lap in front of the assembled members of the press. The mayor and his team unveiled a budget of $124.7 billion that they managed to balance without raise income taxes on the rich or raise taxes on the most profitable corporations – and without raising property taxes either. Was this some kind of secular – or, dare I say, socialist – miracle?
Not exactly. Most of the work was done by the governor and legislators in Albany, who, although still unable to reach a final agreement on their own budget, included $4 billion in policy changes and additional funding for the city. Most of these funds are actually savings from delay payments the city must fully fund municipal employee pensions — the kind of creative, understated accounting that politicians decry when done by their opponents but regularly resort to when in power. But what made securities- and gave a very eye-catching YouTube videoIt was the governor’s announcement last month that he was instituting a pied-à-terre tax (on New York City homes and apartments worth more than $5 million whose owners don’t reside in the city) that is expected to add $500 million a year to the city’s coffers. The mayor, wisely, both passed the measure and declared at least a temporary ceasefire in his campaign to tax the rich.
Wednesday’s announcement also proves that, despite some initial missteps in their budget debut, the mayor and his team are quickly learning how to play this game. Not only did the mayor acknowledge that he would go much further working with the governor than he could have achieved through confrontation, but he was also eager to thank his sparring partner, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, for the council’s “proposal to reduce the unincorporated business tax credit,” which, as noted the mayor, massively benefits millionaires. The reduction, as Budget Director Soliman pointed out during a technical briefing to reporters Wednesday afternoon, can be made without Albany’s permission and is expected to generate an additional $68 million in revenue.
Also under repairing policy hurdles is the allocation of $26 million to the Mayor’s Office for hate crime prevention — a relatively modest sum, but, as Mamdani noted in his remarks, a fulfillment of his “campaign promise to increase funding for hate crime prevention by more than 800 percent.” The office, like The attacker with approval recalled its readers, was created in 2019 to combat the rise of anti-Semitism. “Jewish New Yorkers constitute a minority of New Yorkers in all five boroughs,” the mayor said, “and yet constitute a majority of New Yorkers facing hate crimes in this city.”
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Not all lines in the revised budget are reasons to celebrate. Although the mayor promised that capping spending on the CityFHEPS housing voucher program “will not reduce” the number of housing vouchers, the budget still represents a step back from his campaign promise to expand the program. Likewise, as the costs skyrocket of so-called “due process cases” or “due process cases”,Carter Case» – payments intended to cover private school tuition for children whose special needs are not adequately met by the public school system – have become a significant burden on the city’s finances, with the mayor’s confidence that in the future the city’s school board will be able to accommodate these children may prove misplaced.
Yet if we view the city’s budget process as a drama in three acts—the first being the preliminary budget and the second featuring the mayor’s relationship with the governor—by the end of Act II, all the protagonists are in remarkably good shape. Of course, the third law, which will apply until the city council adopts the final budget at the end of June, could well introduce new twists in the plot – or even, perhaps, a deus ex machina.
Because a lot can still go wrong. President Trump could order ICE to occupy Brooklyn and Queens. The NYPD might shoot the wrong civilian. The Knicks could lose the playoffs. Specifically, the budget set aside funds for just a 1.5 percent raise for city workers – in a city where the overall annual inflation rate is as high as 4.6 percent. With contracts for the 100,000 members of District Council 37, the city’s largest public sector union, set to expire this fall, as well as contracts covering a host of other workers From sewer and building inspectors to park rangers and traffic cops, the mayor’s political mettle is bound to be tested.
But a happy ending for this particular piece of political theater, while far from certain, seems within reach – not a prediction anyone could have made with confidence a few months ago. As for actually raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, or making city buses fast or free, or giving people in food deserts city-subsidized oases to shop, or providing child care for every working parent in the city who needs it — well, as they say, we used in Brooklyn back when the borough had a major league baseball club: “Wait until next year. »
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DD Guttenplan DD Guttenplan is special correspondent for The nation and the former host of The nation’s podcast. He was editor of the magazine from 2019 to 2025 and, before that, editor and London correspondent. His books include American Radical: The Life and Times of IF Stone, The Nation: a biography, And The next Republic: the rise of a new radical majority.