This year we have about a $1.3 billion gap, which is only about 1.5% of the Mayor’s proposed Preliminary Budget for $102.7 billion. That's manageable. But by Fiscal Year 2027, we're looking at gaps of as much as $11.6 billion – more than 10% of expenditures and that doesn’t include approximately $2 billion in costs shifts that the State is trying to impose, like making the City pay another half a billion dollars for the MTA and another billion in rent for charter schools.
On the positive side, the city’s economy is actually in pretty good shape.
We're back to 98% of the jobs we had before the pandemic and Fitch Ratings recently upgraded the City of New York’s General Obligation bonds, which fund our capital program, to AA, citing our strong recovery and the long-term reserves the City funded at my urging last year.
While our economists are more optimistic about our chance of avoiding a recession, we also face many challenges and uncertainties.
Cost of living, and specifically housing affordability, is pushing families out of NYC. After a dip at the beginning of the pandemic, asking rents rose to above their previous peak averaging $3,500 over the last few months.
Local inflation has risen 12.8% since January 2020, while the minimum wage has not grown since 2019 – a strong rationale for raising the minimum wage. Which has not grown since 2019.
On Monday we released a new report, Understaffed, Underserved, that identifies areas where direct services to New Yorkers and the City’s long-term planning and risk management are being affected by high vacancy rates. The FY 2024 preliminary budget includes the impact of several rounds of savings initiatives, primarily through blunt vacancy reductions.
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