The Bottom Lines: Analyzing the Administration’s Proposed Budget Cuts & Their Impacts on City Services
Introduction
Late last year, the Adams Administration announced that it would require agencies to submit plans for the first of three Programs to Eliminate the Gap (PEGs), each totaling about 5 percent of City spending, as well as restrictions on contractual spending and a citywide hiring freeze in order to address significant budget deficits.
Since that initial announcement, the City announced more favorable revenue projections that resulted in select cut restorations, a scaled-back PEG in January, and an outright cancellation of the upcoming April PEG.
While we are pleased that agencies will not be forced to further reduce spending, it should not be an excuse to ignore reduced agency capacity, programmatic cuts that were not restored, and long-term structural issues with how we spend our tax dollars.
In The Bottom Lines, we take a look at a select set of agencies that were not spared from budget cuts, many of which have seen measurable declines in the quality or quantity of service they are able to deliver to the people of New York.