State taxpayers would pick up one-third of the estimated $1 billion annual cost of New York City’s migrant crisis under the record $227 billion budget plan unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The briefing book for Hochul’s fiscal 2024 executive budget said she “recognizes the effort of governments at all levels to provide services and assist with the resettlement process by providing more than $1 billion in extraordinary funding.”
“The Budget creates a framework for the financial burden of such services to be evenly split between the levels of government: 1/3 New York City, 1/3 State, and 1/3 Federal,” according to her proposal.
“This includes the State reimbursing a share of shelter and Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center costs, continuing the National Guard deployment, and funding health care needs.”
The governor was silent, however, on Mayor Eric Adams’ recent “emergency mutual aid request” for the state to immediately provide housing for an initial 500 migrants.
In a Jan. 13 statement, Adams said the city was “at our breaking point,” with projections showing that the Big Apple would soon be unable to continue sheltering arriving asylum seekers “on our own.”
Adams, who’s warned that the total cost of providing migrants with shelter and services could reach $2 billion, has been calling on Hochul and President Biden to help pay for months.
In December, Hizzoner formally asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $1 billion from its Emergency Food and Shelter Program, The Post exclusively reported at the time.
But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last month refused to guarantee the full amount, saying only that the Biden administration, which has been blamed for the surge of migrants across the border, was “increasing funding available to border cities and those cities receiving an influx of migrants.”
Meanwhile, the feds approved just $7.89 million in funding to reimburse the city for spending incurred during the summer, which City Hall said marked the first help provided by the feds since the crisis began.
As of Sunday, an estimated 43,200 migrants had flooded into the city since the spring, with 28,200 living in 86 emergency shelters and processing centers, which City Hall refers to as HERRCs.
City Hall didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) was unimpressed by Hochul’s plan.
“If better than nothing is the new standard, this certainly meets that. But the question still remains: How are we going to get the president to get his alligator arms into his pockets on this one?” Borelli said.
“Even at one-third, we’re still talking about a dollar amount that would rival significant spending of any individual city agency — through no fault of our own.”
Hochul’s budget proposal also contains a minor rollback of the state’s controversial 2019 bail reform law, with the governor calling for the removal of a provision requiring that judges impose the “least restrictive means” to ensure defendants return to court.
Hochul said the move would “restore judicial discretion,” but it falls far short of Adams’ repeated plea that judges be allowed to consider the potential danger that defendants would pose to the public if they’re freed.
That standard is the law in all 49 other states and the federal court system.
In addition, Hochul’s plan includes $40 million to help the justice system deal with changes to “discovery” rules regarding the disclosure of evidence to criminal defendants.
“This funding will continue to bring to scale the staffing, services, and technologies needed to ensure that criminal cases are processed effectively and efficiently,” according to the briefing book.
Prosecutors have said the stringent rules, part of the same 2019 package that included bail reform, have forced them to dismiss tens of thousands of cases because they’re unable to comply with tight deadlines and other requirements.
A study released by the Manhattan Institute earlier this month also found that the changes were “correlated with a devastating rise in crime and a drop in arrests” from 2019 to mid-October 2021.
Other Hochul plans to “improve the effectiveness of the criminal justice system” would give district attorneys $40 million to hire additional prosecutors, develop anti-crime strategies and reduce case backlogs, and provide $20 million for pretrial services programs to prevent “unnecessary detention while simultaneously keeping communities safe.”
Hochul would also increase spending on anti-crime programs by $110 million, to $337 million, including by doubling the funding for the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination program outside New York City, from $18.2 million to $36.4 million.
The 17 counties involved in that program would also get $37 million in new funding for youth employment programs.
Another $1 million would be earmarked for “the establishment of a dedicated Crime Analysis Center (CAC) in New York City” aimed at “disrupting the illegal narcotics trade and the cycle of gun violence.”
