NYC Mayor Eric Adams Restores Some Items Cut From Budget

By Hamodia Staff

New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced that funding will be restored for the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY).

Thanks to measures implemented by the city to manage the city’s budget and navigate fiscal challenges, the city is able to add another police academy class of 600 new recruits set to join the ranks in April. This class of recruits will graduate in October and will join the three additional police classes scheduled to graduate this year.

In addition, funding will be restored to return a fifth firefighter at 20 Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) engine companies and maintain 190 firefighters on payroll who are not expected to be able to return to full-duty status.

The restorations follow targeted and effective steps taken by the Adams administration in the face of a $7 billion budget gap in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 due to federal COVID-19 stimulus funding drying up, expenses from labor contracts this administration inherited after being unresolved for years, and the growing costs of the asylum seeker crisis. They will be reflected in the FY25 Preliminary Budget, which will be presented next Tuesday, at the City Charter deadline.

The funding restorations to the NYPD build on efforts by the Adams administration to drive down overall crime, with murders down 12 percent and shootings down 25 percent in 2023.

“Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity, and so everything we do is to ensure New York City remains the safest big city in America,” said Mayor Adams. “I am proud to announce that we are not only adding hundreds of additional NYPD officers to our police force this year but also bolstering the Fire Department’s ranks.

“We are not out of the woods and have fiscal challenges in the year ahead, and that’s why we still need help from our federal and state partners to offset the costs of COVID-19 funding sunsetting and the continuous influx of asylum seekers.”

“The restoration of the April police academy recruit class is great news for the NYPD and all New Yorkers,” said NYPD Commissioner Edward A. Caban. “There is no better investment in public safety than that of an NYPD officer — and these 600 additional recruits will help bolster our efforts to drive down crime even further in 2024.”

“We are grateful to the mayor for reinstating the fifth firefighter, providing us additional resources as we tackle emerging challenges like lithium-ion batteries,” said FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.

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