Federal Funding Support for Human Service Agencies

Federal funding flows to New York City and New Yorkers in many ways.  Our December 2024 Spotlight provided a broad overview of over $100 billion in federal funding that flows to New York City – not only through the City’s municipal budget but also largely to individuals and health care providers as well as other public entities (e.g., City University of New York and the New York City Housing Authority).  In addition, federal funding also flows directly to nonprofit organizations and research institutions.

Within the City’s Financial Plan, over $7 billion of non-emergency federal funds is allocated to City agencies in FY 2026, with over half of that funding allocated to social services agencies, as depicted below in Table 1.  Many services contracted by these agencies are partially supported by federal funds.

The Comptroller’s Office has developed a dataset to provide a directional sense of which programs are supported by federal dollars and by how much. This tool provides an indication that federal dollars are an underlying share of a particular program’s budget and whether that program includes contracted services. It includes both emergency and non-emergency funding. Ultimately, Executive Directors must look to their contracts and/or funding agencies for specific funding allocations.

This spreadsheet includes data for the following agencies: NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), Department for the Aging (DFTA), Department of Homeless Services (DHS), Department of Social Services (DSS), Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DoHMH), and Department for Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD).  One programmatic area for the Department of Correction is also included.

For each budget function and program (budget name), the spreadsheet provides the total budget, the Federal funding (if any), the share of the budget that is budgeted to come from Federal funding, and the share of the budget that is planned to be spent on contract costs.

The Department of Education (DOE) is not included in the tool due to limitations in the data that the Comptroller’s Office receives on funding sources of programs. The DOE receives the largest amount of federal funding of any City agency, approximately $2 billion. Title 1 provides critical funds to low-income schools, Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) funding supports students with disabilities, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture funds free school breakfast, lunch and summer meals. Some Head Start programs receive federal funding through the DOE, while others receive grants directly from the federal government.  Lastly, the DOE’s Extended Day and Early Learn programs receive funding from the Federal Child Care and Development Block Grant.

Table 1 below shows the breakout of non-emergency federal funding in the City’s FY 2026 budget across agencies with the largest shares of funding.

Table 1. Federal Funding by City Agency ($ in millions)

Agency  Department’s Share of Total Non-Emergency Federal Funding FY 2026 Non-Emergency Federal Funding Total Agency Expenses Across Funding Sources  Fed Non-Emergency % of Agency’s Total Expense 
Department of Education      29% $2,093 $34,997 6%
Department of Social Services     21% $1,529 $11,974 13%
Admin. for Children’s Services     16% $1,107 $3,142 35%
Housing Preservation & Development     11% $806 $1,611 50%
Dept. of Homeless Services     9% $660 $3,554 19%
Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene    4% $292 $2,441 12%
All Other City Agencies  9% $651 $60,073 1%
Total  100% $7,138 $117,791 6%

Source: NYC Office of Management and Budget June 2025 Financial Plan; NYC Office of the Comptroller
Note: The City typically adds additional federal funding over the course of the fiscal year. FY 2025 non-emergency federal funding totaled $8.02 billion. Total expense budget includes intra-city funding.

$288.59 billion
May
2025