Brian Lear on WNYC.

With us now the chair of the New York City Council Finance Committee, Justin Brannon.

Why?

Well, now that it's May, the council and the mayor are in the home stretch

of the budget negotiations for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1st, and many city

services are in play. The mayor's latest version in their back and forth would spend $114 billion,

that would be the total budget, about 4% more than last year in city taxpayer-funded

costs. It projects better revenue than the mayor earlier said would be coming in. That's good

news. So he restored some proposed cuts, including to the police force and early childhood

education.

Libraries would still be closed on Sundays, though.

Some of the new demands on the budget are the loss of federal COVID-era aid,

implementing a smaller class-sized law,

about a billion dollars more budgeted for asylum seeker services next year,

according to the mayor, and other things

that we'll ask about. Here is the mayor last week. And we'll get to the mayor's statement

last week. Basically, he said he avoided layoffs, avoided raising taxes, and here's the mayor now.

What we did not do is just as important as what we did do.

We did not resort to tax hikes, major service cuts, or layoffs.

And I cannot emphasize this enough.

The measures we took worked.

Now, thanks to our discipline and prudent approach, we're able to invest in the things that matter to New Yorkists in the executive budget, like public safety, early childhood education, and the needs of working class people.

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