City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the council and the Adams administration got to a budget agreement “very painfully.”
“It took a lot to get us to where we finally got to and that is a fantastic budget, but it was not an easy road to get there. The council started with zero, negative zero,” she told NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” Tuesday.
The $112 billion budget, which was approved Sunday, came after tense negotiations.
"We came to the table knowing what was cut out, what work was cut out, what we had to do and we made it up until the wire to make sure that New Yorkers were taken care of,” the council speaker said.
Last year, the mayor implemented a series of cuts amid the sunsetting of federal COVID dollars and the ongoing migrant crisis.
“I’m creating a fiscally sound city so no matter what the uncertainties are, if it’s another COVID, if it’s another migrant [crisis], this or that, then we can still run as a city,” the mayor said Tuesday at his weekly press conference.
The council speaker said she didn’t necessarily disagree with the mayor but emphasized that the city is fiscally sound.
"We did not believe that the cuts were necessary to begin with,” she said. “In the long run, we were absolutely right about that."
The approved budget restores $100 million for early childhood development programs, reinstates seven-day service for city libraries with an additional $58 million in funding, and adds dollars for cultural institutions.
It also includes $2 billion for housing initiatives and $500 million for the city's rental assistance program, CityFHEPS.