For over two years, cities throughout the nation have struggled to reply to the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In New York Metropolis, slowing tax income progress mixed with low workplace occupancy charges, and the expiration of momentary federal stimulus {dollars} have put a pressure on our metropolis’s price range. On the similar time, as everyone knows solely too nicely, the pandemic uncovered cracks in schooling, well being care, and housing that urgently have to be addressed, and we confronted prices associated to settling long-expired labor contracts with our devoted municipal workforce. And within the midst of all these challenges, we have now been tasked with managing a considerable inflow of people and households searching for asylum.
New York Metropolis noticed the warning indicators early. We noticed that if we didn’t take quick and decisive motion, an ideal storm leading to a multi-billion-dollar price range hole can be very tough to navigate out of. We knew we needed to make powerful choices and that our decisions wouldn’t at all times be in style, however that they might be the suitable factor to do. That’s as a result of we understood that not making these onerous decisions can be worse for working-class New Yorkers and the long-term stability of our metropolis.
So we did what we wanted to do to handle our manner out of the storm. We carried out insurance policies to cut back the prices of asylum seeker care whereas sustaining vital companies, instituted company financial savings, and extra.
Because of our sturdy fiscal administration and decisive motion, in addition to stronger-than-expected tax revenues, our metropolis’s monetary outlook has stabilized. We balanced the price range, as required by regulation, with out main service disruptions, layoffs, or a single cent in tax hikes.
Alongside being fiscally accountable, we even have achieved main wins for working-class individuals. We supported cost-of-living-adjustments for 80,000 human companies staff — primarily girls and ladies of coloration — in order that they will increase a household in New York Metropolis. We just lately launched Jobs NYC, a whole-of-government method to carry job and profession coaching alternatives to long-overlooked communities by holding hiring halls and launching an internet job search portal which are connecting job seekers with potential employers.
And we have now been in a position to defend over half-a-billion {dollars} in vital, everlasting education schemes that had been funded by federal stimulus {dollars}. These embrace ongoing assist for our college students’ psychological well being by retaining practically 500 psychological well being professionals in our faculties. It additionally means growing sources for particular schooling Pre-Ok applications by increasing occupational, speech, and bodily remedy for our most susceptible younger New Yorkers; sustaining important arts applications; and our in style bilingual applications. Moreover, we’re conducting extra outreach so that oldsters and caregivers find out about seats for 3-Ok and Pre-Ok applications. Additional, many of those academic applications are actually funded with recurring {dollars}, so they’re protected yr after yr.
Now we have enhanced public security and doubled down on our efforts to proceed to carry down shootings by homicides by placing 1,200 extra law enforcement officials on the streets and in our subways with two extra NYPD courses. And all academy courses are actually absolutely funded in 2024, which put us on the trail to having a complete of 35,000 uniformed officers defending New Yorkers within the coming years. The most secure large metropolis in America is getting even safer.
This all places us again on observe to financial and social prosperity — which is not any small accomplishment given the magnitude of the challenges we confronted, and the severity of the disaster we might have needed to deal with had we didn’t act decisively and with a watch for what’s greatest for the town in the long run.
I’m proud to report that, on account of all our good work, not solely have shootings and homicides continued to drop by double digits throughout the town, however general crime is down in our metropolis yr thus far, with month after month decreases.
And our work with so a lot of our native companies has helped our metropolis not solely recuperate the entire private-sector jobs we misplaced in the course of the pandemic, a yr sooner than projected, however with over 300,000 new jobs created beneath this administration, we now have extra complete jobs than ever earlier than in our metropolis’s historical past.
We’re additionally tackling main high quality of life points by containerizing enterprise and residential trash, and lowering the period of time rubbish is allowed to sit down on the curb. Moreover, we have now financed probably the most newly constructed inexpensive housing in a single yr in our metropolis’s historical past, received approval of the historic Willets Level Transformation to construct the biggest 100% inexpensive housing mission in 40 years, and our “Metropolis of Sure” plan to replace decades-old zoning legal guidelines earlier than the Metropolis Council will make it simpler to construct the housing our metropolis urgently wants. Additional, Albany just lately handed all of our inexpensive housing initiatives within the state price range — placing us one step nearer to our moonshot objective of constructing a half one million new inexpensive properties for New Yorkers.
Whereas we nonetheless face challenges, as a result of we put ourselves in a extra steady fiscal place, we will proceed to put money into the wants of on a regular basis New Yorkers. As New York Metropolis strikes towards the longer term, our core values will proceed to information us. We are going to proceed to construct a safer, extra equitable, and extra affluent metropolis for all New Yorkers.
