Adams Unveils a Rosy Election-Year Budget, Citing Lower Migrant Costs

The $114.5 billion spending plan anticipated $2 billion less in asylum seeker costs, but also called for an additional $550 million for nonmigrant shelters.

When Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the final budget of his first (and possibly last) term in office on Thursday, there was no sign of proposed cuts to libraries in the $114.5 billion document, as there had been in years past.

There were no warnings that the surge of undocumented migrants to New York City would prompt budget cuts. There were no new big-ticket initiatives, as one might expect in an election year, with the mayor facing a battalion of well-funded challengers and a federal corruption trial that is set to begin just weeks before the Democratic primary in June.

Instead, the mayor offered a more optimistic budget blueprint, one filled with increasing revenues buoyed by surging business taxes and lower spending for a migrant influx that has slowed in recent months.

“I think it’s really underrated how well of a fiscal manager I have been for the city,” Mr. Adams said on Thursday. “We turned the city around,” he added.

During his budget address, Mr. Adams said his administration had “set the table for success” by managing expenses and spending strategically.

The mayor’s budget projects spending some $2 billion less for asylum seeker services than originally projected through the 2026 fiscal year, an apparent byproduct of the outgoing Biden administration’s border restrictions and the city’s own efforts to pressure migrants to leave the shelter system.