Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s math projecting a $5.4 billion budget deficit is coming under increased scrutiny — as his fiscal team no-showed the start of spending negotiations with the City Council for the first time in decades Wednesday.
The questionable calculations in part come from Mamdani’s refusal to include significant cuts in his behemoth $127 billion proposed budget, City Comptroller Mark Levine testified to the council Wednesday.
Levine argued Mamdani’s record-breaking budget should have cut more than $6 billion through efficiencies and rolling back soaring social services, but the socialist mayor ultimately opted to let spending balloon.
“Here’s what we see: New York City is, quite simply, spending more than it takes it,” Levine testified.
The spendthrift fiscal picture painted by Levine comes as Mamdani demands Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers tax the rich to raise billions of dollars to plug the city’s budget hole.
The mayor has claimed that he’ll have raise property taxes by 9.5% if Albany lawmakers balk at taxing the Big Apple’s millionaires and corporations a bit more.
But Mamdani’s “tax the rich, or else” ultimatum has been dogged by skepticism over his administration’s projections on the budget gap’s size, as well as questions over whether he has gotten spending in line.
“He’s hoping the governor will bail him out,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic operative.
“The numbers are absolutely out of whack because he refuses to cut,” Sheinkopf said.
“It’s an extortion technique to get the legislature to give him the money, or else. And what, the ‘or else’ is the city goes belly up? It’s dangerous. There is no good ending to this show as long as he continues to add to the deficit.”
Ultimately, the budget would be much more fiscally healthy if Mamdani’s team set it at $121 billion, with the state aid, savings and cuts to social services included, Levine argued.
Bu the math whizzes in Mamdani’s Office of Management and Budget skipped their chance to defend the choices in the spending plan as the council’s finance committee kicked off its budget hearings.
Budget Director Sherif Soliman didn’t show up, nor did anyone else from his office.
The Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget has been the first to testify under the last four administrations dating back to 2000, a Post review of records show.
“It’s a slap in the face to the public,” one council member fumed, asking why the administration didn’t send someone else from OMB familiar with their budget to testify in Soliman’s place.
“It’s because they know their numbers are fuzzy and exaggerated and sweep it under the rug by appearing at the end of the budget cycle,” the source opined.
Insiders said Soliman requested a religious accommodation for Ramadan because he was fasting. City Hall officials suggested an evening hearing, but their council counterparts argued that’d be challenging for an hours-long proceeding.
Soliman will instead testify March 25.
Mamdani’s money man sat for budget hearings as CUNY’s financial chief in 2024 and 2025, both of which fell during Ramadan. A City Hall rep argued testimony from a budget director is much more demanding.
— Additional reporting by Haley Brown and Hannah Fierick