With a deadline for his first budget proposal looming, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday convened reporters to City Hall for a mayoral rite of passage: blaming his predecessor for the problems that lie ahead.
The problems stem from a projected $12 billion budget gap, presenting a sizable obstacle to Mr. Mamdani in fulfilling some of his campaign promises. He said the best solution was to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and to have the city receive an equitable share of state revenue.
“We will meet this crisis with the bold solutions it demands,” Mr. Mamdani said. “That means recalibrating the broken fiscal relationship between the state and the city, and it means that the time has come to tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations.”
The blame, Mr. Mamdani said during a news conference in City Hall’s Blue Room, was large enough to spread around.
He first unveiled a large image on a screen that read, “Adams Budget Crisis,” in all capital letters, a reference to his predecessor, Eric Adams. The mayor later faulted former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for shortchanging the city in state funds, saying that he “extracted our city’s resources” and created an imbalance that continues today.
But most of his finger-pointing was directed at Mr. Adams, whom he accused of handing “the next administration a poisoned chalice,” referring to the $12.6 billion budget deficit this year and next. Mr. Mamdani said the deficit — which would be the city’s largest since the 2008 fiscal crisis — was a result of Mr. Adams making the “deliberate choice to under-budget.”
Mr. Adams’s budget allocated $860 million for cash assistance, but the real figure is closer to $1.6 billion, Mr. Mamdani said. He also asserted that the $1.47 billion allotted for shelter costs is about half a billion dollars short.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has been adamantly opposed to raising income taxes but has proposed an extension of a corporate tax hike implemented in 2021. She has hinted at a willingness to raise business taxes, especially with uncertainty over federal funding .
Mr. Mamdani was careful not to criticize Ms. Hochul, with whom he has a good relationship. The governor has already announced a plan to spend $4.5 billion on child care, including expanding services for nearly 100,000 children.
“I’ve been encouraged by our conversations with Governor Hochul, and I’ve been encouraged also by the relationship we are building, which is a different kind of relationship than one that’s typically been the case between City Hall and Albany,” Mr. Mamdani said.
The mayor’s complaints received mixed reviews. Leaders from groups such as the left-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute praised Mr. Mamdani’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy, and the city comptroller, Mark Levine, called the gap the city is facing “unprecedented for New York City” outside an economic crisis. Representatives of Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Adams were far less impressed. And even Ms. Hochul seemed to be pulling her punches.
The governor on Wednesday said that her aides have been meeting regularly with Mr. Mamdani’s advisers and that there “is a lot of time between now and then to help navigate this situation,” but maintained that she was unwilling to raise taxes.
She pointed out Mr. Mamdani has repeatedly called for higher taxes, “so I don’t know what the news flash is.”
“We are not raising taxes in the State of New York,” the governor told reporters after a Midtown event where the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council endorsed her re-election bid. She added, “ So he’ll continue to say what he needs to say. I’ll continue to say what I want to say.”
Ms. Hochul pointed out that the state is projecting $17 billion more in tax revenue than expected over the next two years, a result of a surging stock market and large Wall Street bonuses. The governor’s office also pointed out that city funding from the state has increased 33 percent since she took office.
Andrew Rein, the president of the fiscally conservative Citizens Budget Commission, said that while he believes the city has budget problems, he does not believe the deficits are as large as the mayor claims.
“The first order of business before raising taxes is to dig into the agencies to see where we can find savings,” Mr. Rein said in an interview. “I’d like to see him digging into the agencies like he was digging into the snow the other day.”
Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, heralded the former mayor’s fiscal management during the pandemic and the influx of migrants, saying he “led a real recovery” in spite of those challenges and called the criticisms “inaccurate and disingenuous.”
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, noted that the former governor has been out of office for half a decade, and wrote on social media that Mr. Mamdani’s news conference was the “single dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Zohran Mamdani needs to learn that being an executive is more than cosplaying in a custom, designer windbreaker,” Mr. Azzopardi said in a statement. “You need a basic command of the facts.”
Benjamin Oreskes contributed reporting.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
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