The budget director made a bold statement this week.

“We know we’re not going to spend the money for the borough-based jail by 2027,” Jacques Jiha said. “We have to keep it there.”

No, the city will not meet its goal to open four borough-based jails by the summer of 2027.

What You Need To Know

  • Rikers Island is supposed to close in August of 2027

  • But officials have repeatedly questioned that timeline

  • Now, the city's budget director is saying new jails will not open by then

“The timeline that was created for the borough-based jail was prior to COVID-19,” he said at the City Council on Monday. “We put the capital plan on pause for a year and half. Nothing could take place, but yet we expect the same timeline to continue when there was a pause in the entire capital program for a year and a half. So we know it’s not going to happen by 2027.”

By law, approved by the City Council in 2019, the city must close Rikers Island by the summer of 2027.

It will replace the controversial facility with four borough-based jails in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan.

But its becoming increasingly clear that deadline may not happen.

Last year, in a contract to build the city’s new jail in Brooklyn, the timeline was pushed out. It will not be completed until 2029.

Probably unnerving residents there who are already upset by the demolition work on site.

At the end of last month, the city acknowledged it was going to expand the capacity at all of the new jails to accommodate the growing Rikers population. Each jail was supposed to house 886 detainees. Now, each jail will hold more — 1,040.

“Today we do not have the same capacity that we had a few years ago,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said last week. “We have to be cognizant that if we don’t have adequate housing for people were actually going doing the opposite of the intention of the borough-based jail plan and have some people in inadequate places, substitute jail orders, or other not so good and temporary accommodations, to really make sure everyone in our jail system has housing.”

A spokesperson for the Adams administration argues the city is still committed to following the law requiring closure of Rikers in 2027.

That said, he added, it is also waiting for recommendations from a newly reconstituted commission that is examining how to accomplish that.

That commission is being chaired by former Chief Judge of the State of New York Jonathan Lippman.

In a statement on Tuesday, he said: “The commission’s goal is to lay out a refreshed blueprint of proven policies to help ensure the closure of Rikers, in the context of the changed realities of a post-COVID New York City and the law mandating closure by 2027.”

In response to the budget director’s comments this week, a council spokesperson sent NY1 this statement: “There are currently no considerations to change the law. While we await the findings of the Lippman Commission 2.0, it is important to recognize that there are benchmarks in the ‘close Rikers’ points of agreement to advance progress that this administration has not fulfilled. We cannot allow Rikers to continue undermining public safety and it is imperative that the mayor’s administration take leadership for executing the required steps through collaboration with all stakeholders, including the courts, district attorneys, public defenders and others in the criminal legal system.”