Mayor’s Office considers 20% cut

New York City considers cut 20% of the spending on thousands of immigrants who have arrived since the spring of last year and which, according to the mayor, Eric Adamshave undermined the city’s finances.

The director of the Mayor’s Budget Office, Jacques Jiha, sent a memo to agency heads today demanding that present a cuts plan before December 8 of 20% on expenses for immigrantswith a view to keeping the budget balanced for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

Jiha remembers that the flow of immigrants continues, and that 66,000 of the 143,000 who have arrived in New York since spring 2022 are in the city’s care.

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Remember that the city allocated this month 6.2 billion dollars to the fiscal plan for 2024 and 2025 to meet the costs of accommodation and care of the immigrantsbut warns that the gaps in local finances have “expanded.”

According to the Mayor’s Office at the end of October, The cost of immigrants welcomed into the system has risen to almost $400 per person per day.

Among the measures that the Adams administration has adopted to deal with the humanitarian and fiscal crisis, The time in which a single person can stay in a shelter has been limited to 30 days and the period for families to 60 days.

In parallel, Adams has also gone to court to suspend the law that forces the city to provide shelter to anyone who requests it, in an attempt to stop the flow of immigrantsmostly Venezuelans and with a large number of Africans.

Jiha expressed her gratitude for the nearly $1.8 billion committed by Governor Kathy Hochul for the expenses of immigrantsbut noted that it has warned that the state cannot continue helping at that level without running the risk of reducing services.

The memo indicates that There can be no layoffs as part of the cost reduction plan and no staff will be hired.

“It is clear that we must do more. The city cannot sustain the costs of caring for asylum seekers at current levels and at the same time maintain city services and keep the city safe and clean,” Jiha said.