My name is Larry on WNYC, as you've heard over the last few days, Mayor Adams is asking

all city agencies for 5% budget cuts to help pay for asylum-seeker services.

So we use this as an opportunity to take a close look at the city budget.

What agencies actually spend what, on what, for your hard-earned tax dollars, whether

asylum-seeker services are really costing the 5% that the mayor says, and what 5% off

the top could mean for different New Yorkers.

Here's the mayor on Saturday saying basically, this means you.

For the better part of the year now, I have been clear that these costs will impact every

city service.

The simple truth is that long-time New Yorkers and asylum seekers will fill these potential

cuts, and they will hurt.

Mayor Adams on Saturday.

So get out your calculators if you want to keep score at home.

As with me now, for a mildly wonky, but vital conversation about the city budget and these

proposed cuts is Andrew Ryan, president of the Citizens' Budget Commission, a nonpartisan

nonprofit New York City budget watchdog group.

He's previously made proposals to help the city financially through the pandemic, help

the MTA, see how to balance its budget, be an associate director of the Centers for

Disease Control at the federal level, and the New York City Health Department here,

and like any good budget analyst, his college degree was in philosophy.

Wait, what?

Okay, he's also got a master's in urban policy and management from the new school.

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