


Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has spared the Police, Fire and Sanitation Departments from the latest round of budget cuts aimed at covering the costs of New York City’s migrant crisis, The Post has learned.
“We did not implement the requested PEGs across the board,” the mayor told members of the City Council in a closed-door meeting Tuesday afternoon, referring to his administrations “Program to Eliminate the Gap.”
Notes from the meeting, which were shared with The Post, show Adams told councilmembers his administration had all agencies “participate” in the “exercise” of coming up with cuts, “but then we made a determination of which ones we were going to use.”
“If it was too draconian we did not allow it to happen,” he said, according to the notes.
“Every agency submitted to the target, but agencies that would have the largest impact on core services were exempted.”
Police, fire, schools, libraries and sanitation were not subjected to the cuts while the Department of Youth and Community Development, Social Services and Homeless Services were “partially exempt,” the mayor told councilmembers, though he didn’t go into details.
“We managed to stabilize the fiscal situation this current year,” city budget director Jacques Jiha said.
The Adams administration has said three rounds of 5% spending reduction to cover the roughly $10 billion price tag for the migrant crisis.
Adams’ preliminary budget was set at $109.4 billion Tuesday, down from $110.5 billion presented in November under the first round of financial slashing.
The mayor credited the increased tax revenue, which came in at $3.7 billion, for allowing the city to roll back much of the expected cuts.
“The reality is what Speaker [Adrienne’ Adams and what I did as mayor… really prevented this city from really having to see more severe cuts,” Adams said, adding, “We got no help from Washington, DC. None.”
Councilmembers have criticized the Adams administration for its conservative projection on the city’s revenue, arguing the level of proposed cuts had gone too far.
Adams is expected to brief the media at 3 p.m. on the budget.
Last week, the mayor rolled back nearly $200 million in cuts from November, including the final police academy class of this fiscal year and FDNY staffing.