Mamdani budget proposal leaves out community safety office, keeps NYPD at same level

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preliminary budget for 2027, announced this week, leaves out funds for his signature community safety program, but keeps funding for police at the same level.

Community safety has been a central concern for Jews, who are targeted in hate crimes far more than other groups in the city.

During Mamdani’s campaign, Jewish community leaders repeatedly warned about safety concerns under a Mamdani administration due to his hostility toward Israel and past opposition to police.

The $127 billion budget for 2027 announced this week is preliminary and serves as a starting point for negotiations with the City Council, which must approve a final budget by the end of June. The city’s fiscal year begins in July.

The mayor’s office said the budget needed to close a $5.4 billion gap. Mamdani said he preferred to increase personal income taxes of high-earning New Yorkers and corporate taxes to close the gap, but if that was not possible, would raise property taxes by 9.5% and tap into the city’s reserve funds.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Comptroller Mark Levine, who are both Jewish, came out against the increase in property taxes. Menin and Levine, both centrist Democrats with deep ties to Jewish communities, hold two of the most powerful positions in city government, enabling them to serve as a counterweight to City Hall.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul also said she opposed the tax hike.

A 2023 survey by the UJA-Federation of New York found that 45% of Jewish households owned their homes in the city, while the citywide average was around 30%.

The biggest expenditures for city agencies in the proposed budget were 40% for education, 26% for social services, and 12% for uniformed agencies, led by the NYPD, at 7%.

The budget called to nix the planned hiring of 5,000 new police officers, keeping the force at around 35,000 officers.

Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, had announced the plan to hire 5,000 new officers late last year, near the end of his term.

The mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice would receive about $810 million dollars, an increase from $798 million in 2026, the budget said. The Office of Criminal Justice includes the city’s Office of Hate Crime Prevention, which was allotted $26 million. It was not clear how much the hate crimes office received last year because its budget was wrapped into funding for the Office of Criminal Justice.

The NYPD’s budget would remain nearly the same, from $6.4 billion in 2026 to $6.38 billion in 2027.

The preliminary budget did not refer to funds for Mamdani’s proposed Department of Community Safety, a central plank of his plan to combat antisemitism and other hate crimes in the city.

Mamdani’s initial plan for the department called for $1.1 billion in funding.

Mamdani said on Tuesday that the revised executive budget, which will be released in the coming months, will include investments in the department.