Josephine Stratman, Rocco Parascandola
New York Daily News
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NEW YORK — The city’s $125.8 billion budget deal doesn’t include a previously planned NYPD headcount increase — coming after Mayor Mamdani faced pressure from his base to scrap his plan to add more officers.
Mamdani on the campaign trail said he would keep the department’s headcount flat, but he proposed an increase of 580 officers in his May executive budget proposal, then changed his position again in the final adopted budget, which will take effect on Wednesday.
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At a budget press conference on Tuesday morning, Mamdani said he backed down from increasing the headcount after speaking to all his agency heads about savings. The estimated cost of the increased headcount was $70 million
“Commissioner Tisch and I were able to identify ways to keep the NYPD headcount at the originally authorized 35,000, while also meeting all of our crime-fighting needs and implementing the new programs that were announced earlier this year,” Mamdani said at the City Hall handshake deal announcement.
Mamdani and Council Speaker Julie Menin reached an agreement on the budget late Monday night after negotiations stretched down to the wire.
“It’s not a decision I agree with,” Menin said of the NYPD issue at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, adding that the mayor personally called her last night to tell her.
The mayor’s move to ditch the increase also comes after he caught significant backlash to the move from his core base — particularly from the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. NYC-DSA urged Mamdani to reverse course earlier this month, saying the move “runs counter to the values of the socialist and working-class movement that elected him.”
“Increasing funding for the NYPD has not [led] to increased public safety for New Yorkers in the past,” Gustavo Gordillo , NYC-DSA co-chairperson, said on Tuesday of the nixed headcount increase. “NYC-DSA is proud to work with the mayor on alternatives to policing and mental health response. We are committed to building a strong Office of Community Safety and delivering the public safety the working class deserves.”
The mayor previously said the increase was necessary both to staff a new Bronx borough command and to meet additional Police Academy training requirements.
“For now, the department is able to police effectively with the budgeted headcount we have, driving crime down month after month,” Delaney Kempner , an NYPD spokesperson, said. “That headcount and our hiring plan gives us the flexibility we need to maintain that balance over the next fiscal year.”
But the reversal was criticized by Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry , who said the department’s headcount is becoming a bigger issue, especially as summer gets into full swing.
“Police officers are already burning out and leaving by the hundreds,” Hendry said. “Mayor Mamdani needs to recognize that there is an even bigger staffing crisis looming, because our members have already been out of contract for nearly a year. He needs to sit down with us and work on ways to keep the cops we already have.”
The budget passed the City Council in a 46-5 vote Tuesday night; with most of the no votes coming from Republicans angered by the mayor’s flip-flopping.
Councilmember Phil Wong, a moderate Democrat representing Queens, said his district needs more cops.
“At a whopping upcoming City budget of $125.8 billion, Mayor Mamdani’s Administration chose not to expand NYPD headcount while the 104th, 110th, and 112th Precincts remain woefully understaffed,” Wong said in a statement.
Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, who also represents Queens, like many progressive members was not at the handshake deal announcement Tuesday morning. She praised keeping the NYPD headcount flat.
“This budget is an important check on the failed policy of broken windows policing and will allow us to build a public safety infrastructure rooting in care, not punishment and incarceration,” Cabán said.
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