Dire report warns Mayor Eric Adams is slashing the city’s budget too aggressively – $10BN cut this year – despite his office saying asylum seekers will cost $4.7BN

A grim report warns that New York Mayor Eric Adams is cutting the city budget too aggressively — overcompensating by $5 billion — to deal with the migrant crisis.

Adams ordered city agencies — including the NYPD, the Fire Department and the Department of Education — to cut budgets by 15 percent this fiscal year — starting with a 5 percent cut in November.

The Democratic leader says the city must make cuts to accommodate the roughly 116,000 migrants arriving in 2023.

But a report from the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute claims the 15 percent cut Adams is demanding amounts to $10 billion — far more than the $4.7 billion he says the city needs in the coming year to care for the migrants .

“While growth in costs for asylum seekers is creating new budget pressures, the city’s request for 15 percent cuts to all agencies — amounting to a $10 billion cut in one year — significantly overestimates the budget impact of migrant arrivals ‘, the report said.

Adams ordered city agencies — including the NYPD, the Fire Department and the Department of Education — to cut budgets by 15 percent this fiscal year

New York Mayor Eric Adams speaks to reporters at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on Thursday

“The city estimates that the total cost to asylum seekers in 2024 and 2025 will be $10.9 billion. However, the city’s share of the costs for asylum seekers in 2024 and 2025 amounts to $8.9 billion, of which $2.4 billion was already budgeted in the adopted budget.

“This brings the city’s new funding needs to $6.5 billion over the next two years: $2.3 billion in 2024 and $4.1 billion in 2025. The proposed cuts of $10 billion per year are billions of dollars higher than the higher cost estimates for asylum seekers. ‘

The mayor’s proposed cuts also assume that the situation will not improve in the next two years, and that all migrants will require the city to care for them indefinitely.

“The city’s cost estimates for asylum seekers assume that no progress is made in finding efficiencies in housing or work permits, and that per-night costs for households will remain $383 over the next two years,” the study said.

Mayor Adams’ office told DailyMail.com in a statement: “The Mayor has made it clear that in the absence of significant and timely state and federal support, we will have to make difficult choices to stabilize our city’s budget.

‘FPI’s calculations are based on incorrect assumptions and are therefore inaccurate. The truth is that we must take strong and decisive action now to close projected billions of dollars in budget shortfalls in fiscal years 2024 and 2025, as required by law, and prevent substantial budget disruption that will harm asylum seekers and elderly New Yorkers.

“If conditions change during the year, we will reevaluate our savings initiatives.”

The mayor says the city has already spent $1.45 billion on migrant care this fiscal year and expects to spend more than $4.7 billion by the end of the year.

Migrants wait to be processed in a closed bar near the Roosevelt Hotel

The mayor says the city has already spent $1.45 billion on caring for migrants this fiscal year

Many have urged the Adams administration to raise taxes on the wealthy so they have enough resources to pay for the crisis. His office blames federal and state governments for not providing sufficient support to address the situation in New York.

“I want to be clear: These difficult decisions are a direct result of inaction in Washington and Albany,” Adams said of the cuts. “The simple truth is that old New Yorkers and asylum seekers will feel and be hurt by these potential cuts.

“New Yorkers are angry and frustrated, and rightly so. I am too.’

As Adams looks for ways to ease the crisis, he has reduced the time single male migrants can stay in shelters from 60 days to 30 days. He has also asked a judge to temporarily suspend the city’s right-to-shelter policy.

Adams — who is up for re-election in 2025 — told city agencies they would each have to cut spending by 5 percent by November. There will then be another 5 percent cut in January and a final hack in April.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Adams plans to spend as much as an additional $1 billion on hotel rooms for immigrants over three years.

The city’s contract with the more than 100 hotels converted into shelters, which was set to expire this year, now expires in August 2026 at a total cost of $1.365 billion — nearly five times the original $237 million price tag.

New York City’s migrant crisis is expected to cost the city $4.7 billion this year. Above is a list of some of the landmarks that have been converted into emergency shelters as officials struggle to house nearly 60,000 migrants in the city’s care

Migrants are seen crossing the US-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas

The new charges do not include other facilities that have been converted into shelters, such as the tent shelters set up at the McCarren Recreation Center in Queens or the Island Shores Assisted Living on Staten Island.

As Adams faces massive backlash over the crisis, city officials, including fellow Democrats, have spoken out about renewing its contract with hotels

“The migrant crisis has evolved into a financial mess, with quietly extended contracts lining the pockets of a few at taxpayer expense,” Democratic Queens Assemblyman Robert Holden said in The New York Post.

“It’s time to put a stop to this fiscal recklessness. Let’s send those (migrant) buses to the White House and remember that ‘Right to Shelter’ should not be misinterpreted as a global right.”

However, Department of Human Services/Homeless Services Commissioner Molly Wassow Park said there are cancellation clauses and the city does not have to pay the full amount if it no longer needs the hotels.

Adams has said the crisis will cost the city $12 billion over three years.