Amid nationwide protests, de Blasio, Council near budget deal that would slash NYPD spending
The toughest city budget negotiations of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure are winding down for the lame-duck mayor, as he was forced to propose $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD amid a national outcry over police brutality.
De Blasio and the City Council, led by Speaker Corey Johnson, neared a deal Sunday evening that would significantly reduce the budget for the police department, weeks after the mayor resisted calls for cuts of this magnitude, according to four officials involved in the talks.
The $87 billion budget, which would take effect July 1 following a vote by the Council, is down from the mayor’s proposal of $95.3 billion in January. It marks the first time in his six-plus-year tenure that he has had to substantially reduce spending on municipal programs — the inevitable conclusion of a trio of crises: the coronavirus pandemic, the ensuing financial fallout and the national movement for police reform.
De Blasio’s team on Saturday proposed a series of cuts to the NYPD that largely mirrored a plan the Council put forth a few weeks ago. School safety agents, who are unarmed but wear police uniforms, would be moved into the Department of Education; a July class of roughly 1,100 recruits would be canceled and certain homeless outreach operations would be shifted away from police control, according to the sources.
A City Hall official said the NYPD’s capital budget, which covers long-term construction projects, would sustain further cuts.
“The mayor got there because he worked out a plan that keeps New Yorkers safe. That was most important to him. Once he had a path to maintain patrol strength, funding youth programming and taking a fair look at the funding was a given,” the official said.
Calls to cut the NYPD, an institution historically revered by elected officials, have forced de Blasio, and to a lesser extent Johnson, into a politically difficult position. On one side is a growing contingent of left-leaning New Yorkers who view it as a shell game that won’t significantly reform the criminal justice system. They are largely aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization that is gaining ground in local electoral politics.
On the other side are more conservative Democrats concerned about a potential rise in crime and attendant slip in quality-of-life issues.
Complicating matters for Johnson and de Blasio is that the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus is not aligned with the DSA and has been arguing about the nature and size of police cuts with some of the body’s left-leaning Democratic members in private negotiations over recent weeks, multiple people have told POLITICO.
On Friday, the caucus issued a statement slamming the DSA after some of its members showed up outside the homes of two Council members.
“We reject efforts by those who seek to appropriate our message and gentrify our movement with their ideologies, rather than our realities, and denounce their attempts to menace a Black mother and her baby, and bully an ally and community leader by threatening entry into his home,” the caucus tweeted on Friday.
“When others retreat to their privilege, our Black, Latino and Asian communities will be left to contend with budget cuts, police brutality, and recovery from devastation of COVID-19, and it will continue to be our responsibility to illuminate the path forward for our movement,” the statement continued.
Activists who have been calling for at least $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD camped outside City Hall for the past week to demand more substantial reforms.
“Transferring school safety agents from the NYPD to the DOE is bureaucratic reshuffling parading as real reform,” Amberliz Linares, a member of Urban Youth Collaborative and a 15-year-old student at Brooklyn School for Social Justice, said in a prepared statement. “A cop is still a cop — no matter who supervises them. All we want to do is learn.”
That reaction was anticipated by some Council members, should the current deal come to pass.
“NYers marching in our streets for#BlackLivesMatter #DefundNYPD will NOT be satisfied by moving Safety Agents from the NYPD to the@NYCschools budget,” Council Member Ben Kallos said in a tweet Sunday.
Meanwhile the mayor and Johnson each have big problems awaiting them.
De Blasio, whose tenure is being consumed with crisis, was rejected by state lawmakers in his request to be allowed to borrow $5 billion to manage the financial fallout from Covid-19.
The practice was banned after the 1970s fiscal crisis and thus would require approval from the Legislature and governor.
“Mayor de Blasio has made it clear we have several months before drastic measures like layoffs would occur and other city leaders have sent mixed signals about the wisdom and efficacy of the current request,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement Saturday.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, through a spokesperson, simply said he is reviewing the request.
Johnson, who is considering his own run for mayor, must mollify Council members who are at odds with City Hall over their own budget. The lawmakers last year received nearly $800 million to spend on social programs, divvy up among nonprofits in their districts and contribute to city agencies. This year they are demanding $750 million and de Blasio is fiercely resisting that call, the sources said.