He’s being placeholder-ed in an awkward position.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani could be forced to release his executive budget Tuesday with “placeholder” estimates on key sources of revenue, after he tried to rely on dysfunction-riddled Albany to reach a deal on its own spending plan and bail him out the Big Apple, insiders revealed.
The potential fill-in-the-blanks city budget plan is exactly what Mamdani tried to avert when he delayed its release from May 1 in hopes that Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers would reach a deal on its own long-delayed budget and give the city a windfall of new tax revenues.
Instead, Hizzoner watched helplessly as legislators last week embarrassingly swatted down Hochul’s premature claim to have reached a deal with her fellow Democrats in charge of state government — leaving the city in the lurch on major funding questions.
“This is a joke played on New Yorkers by the governor to make it appear all is well when it is not,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic consultant.
One major likely guesstimate would be how much money a pied-à-terre tax, or levy on luxury second homes, will bring the city as the mayor hopes to close a reputed $5.4 billion budget shortfall.
The tax jointly proposed by Mamdani and Hochul — which would apply to second homes worth at least $5 million — is a sticking point in state budget talks.
Officials with the governor’s and mayor’s offices estimate the tax could generate an additional $500 million.
But the city comptroller’s office recently poured cold water on the prediction, arguing it could net somewhere between $340 and $380 million dollars, depending how certain exclusions are calculated.
The exact scope of how the program would work and how these exemptions would be calculated has not been shared publicly.
Other experts have pointed out how the tax could drive investment outside of the Empire State — following the lead of billionaire Ken Griffin, who pulled local jobs and investment after Mamdani targeted him in a “Tax the Rich” social media video filmed outside his apartment.
Hochul, while spiking the football on her yet-to-be-agreed-to state budget deal’s $4.5 billion in funding for childcare, crowed about her “great level” of cooperation with City Hall.
Cooperation, however, hasn’t led to any details on how the tax would work — with Hochul only providing a dictionary definition of it to reporters.
“It’s been a decision that there will be a pied-à-terre tax on on high-net worth individuals’ second homes,” she said.
“These are people who are not New Yorkers, who’ve bought the real estate here for either just investment or to drop in a couple times a year.”
Some insiders were puzzled that Mamdani shackled himself — and the city’s budget — to the outcome in Albany.
Bill Cunningham, a veteran Democratic operative who worked for former mayor Michael Bloomberg, said past City Halls didn’t care about the state budget deadline.
“We put the city budget out for a reason,” he said. “It told everybody in Albany where the city was, what it needed, and that how you start trying to negotiate.
“The idea that you’re gonna keep holding back and not putting out details or items you could expect form the state — it puts you in a very weak position.”
Cunningham also noted continuing confusion over how to put a pied-à-terre tax into place.
“They don’t even know which property would fall under it,” he said. “That’s how convoluted the city tax structure is.”
City Hall officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.