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A cash-strapped Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking under the couch cushions for savings, but he should be going to the mattresses.
On Wednesday, the mayor announced the first round of cuts in a planned $1.7 billion savings initiative, following a January directive for agencies to trim 1.5% from the current-year budget and 2.5% for Fiscal 2027, which begins in July.
Many of these cuts were long overdue.
The single biggest potential savings, $100 million, comes from identifying and removing ineligible dependents from the city’s swollen health insurance plans.
The remainder is a hodge-podge: his social-media videos highlight $27 million saved on pens and paper and another million by buying Naloxone from another vendor.
But let’s not kid ourselves: the mayor is being penny-wise and pound-foolish. He can’t tighten the budget’s belt without addressing the 330,000-strong public workforce and cutting low-value programs.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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John Ketcham is a legal policy fellow and director of Cities at the Manhattan Institute. Ken Girardin is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
