CUNY Chancellor, left, City Council Speaker, center, and other CUNY officials (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)

Looking ahead to next school and beyond, the City University of New York (CUNY) announced “CUNY Lifting New York,” a strategic plan that intends to transform CUNY into the nation’s foremost student-centered university system by the end of the decade. The

Mayor Adams & Speaker Adams shake on the budget deal (photo: @NYCMayor)

Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced on Thursday a deal on a massive $107 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year, just days before the July 1 deadline, marking the conclusion of months of contentious negotiations between the two sides of City Hall. The full Council is scheduled to vote the budget through on Friday morning.

This budget is the largest at adoption in city history, adding $6 billion in spending compared to the budget adopted last June, largely because of spending on

Comptroller Brad Lander at City Hall (photo: Office of the NYC Comptroller)

June 27, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Comptroller Brad Lander on City Budget Negotiations

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander joined the show to discuss city budget negotiations, the items he's most focused on as Mayor Adams and the City Council craft the new budget, the city's economic and fiscal health, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded

Mayor Adams & Speaker Adams announce a budget agreement, June 2022 (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As the July 1 deadline looms for New York City’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year, Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council must resolve major differences over what will be a roughly $110 billion spending plan.

This year’s budget also closely coincides with this month’s primary elections, which has many City Council members on the ballot and may be delaying a final agreement until just before the start of the new fiscal year.

Among the series of disputes between the two sides of

The People's Money in action (Civic Engagement Commission)

Not everyone knows this about Mayor Eric Adams: he is the first Mayor in the City of New York to give every New Yorker, ages 11 and up, regardless of citizenship, a direct say in how to spend a part of the city budget. This is New York City’s first citywide participatory budgeting program, run by the Civic Engagement Commission (CEC), and it builds on the Mayor’s legacy of supporting participatory budgeting in schools and Council districts in Brooklyn.

Here are four key reasons

CUNY graduates (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

There is perhaps no institution in our city that has done more to create economic opportunity for New Yorkers than the City University of New York (CUNY). For generations, CUNY has provided its students with the tools they need to build a brighter financial future for themselves and their families. Yet today, CUNY finds itself at a financial crossroads. Steep budget cuts threaten the programs that are most effective at helping students earn a degree.

To ensure that

Bus riders (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

On thecampaign trail and inCity Hall, Mayor Eric Adams

City Council Member Justin Brannan (photo: Gerardo Romo/NYC Council Media Unit)

June 5, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan on City Budget Negotiations

City Council Member Justin Brannan, a Brooklyn Democrat and chair of the Council's Finance Committee, joined the show to discuss city budget negotiations with just weeks to go until a new spending plan is due by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. He also discussed his participation in a small Council delegation trip to Washington, DC, to pursue a variety of priorities, including

Library funding in hand (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)

As the New York City budget cycle ramps up, the need for near-term fiscal balance often leads to decisions that are costly, economically and socially, in the long run. Put another way, it’s generally cheaper to help than to harm, but the budget process is geared toward the latter. The extent to which this is avoidable in reality is open to debate. However, New Yorkers, as citywide investors, should have a publicly available tool to shed light on how these outcomes are affecting the

Summer Youth Employment Program celebration (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)

New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) could be seeing a boost despite proposed budget cuts, thanks to legislation in the City Council that could lead to greater participation from city agencies.

The Council is expected to pass a bill Thursday that would set a goal for each city agency to offer youth job slots as part of the landmark program, which connects tens of thousands of students with paid job opportunities in and out of city government during the summer months when school is

Serving meals (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The organizations that New York City contracts to deliver everything from essential health and homeless services to youth and senior programing are striking for better compensation in the next city budget.

Over 100 human services providers will pause many non-life-saving activities on Thursday to demonstrate what they say are the consequences of underfunding the sector as inflation and compounding economic and social crises strain the system. Led by the Human Services Council of New York, the "day without human services”

Mental health plans (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

The New York City Council is seeking greater investment in the behavioral health workforce as leaders at all levels of government grapple with the longstanding crisis of untreated severe mental illness.

The Council and Mayor Eric Adams are negotiating the mayor's $106.7 billion executive budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. On the table is tens of millions of dollars to help boost staffing levels for a range of needed services – some new and some depleted by the pandemic — both in and out of city

Mayor Adams and others tour a HERRC (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As the migrant asylum-seeker crisis continues to escalate, and another surge of arrivals has begun after a federal pandemic-era border policy expired last week, Mayor Eric Adams is taking increasingly desperate steps to ease the impact on New York City.

While virtually everyone agrees that the federal and state governments should do more to help the city, critics say there are still several concrete measures the mayor has failed to

Mayor & Governor (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

New York State’s $229 billion budget deal for the new fiscal year has both good and bad news for New York City and Mayor Eric Adams’ Albany agenda.

It directs additional funding for the ongoing migrant asylum-seeker crisis, provides a lifeline to the cash-strapped MTA, funds rent relief for public housing residents, extends a child tax credit, increases enforcement for illegal marijuana sales, and more. But it excluded regulatory changes and tax incentives that

At CUNY (photo: @CUNY)

In the new state budget that was passed Tuesday night, the City University of New York, CUNY, will get significant operational and capital funding boosts while students from New York will be spared tuition increases, Assembly leadership announced on Tuesday.

The State Legislature is approving budget bills in Albany, bringing the $229 billion state budget for the 2024 fiscal year to a conclusion, one month after it was due.

While all final details have yet to be dissected, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced on Tuesday that the CUNY system, which has more than

Make the Road New York (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

With Mayor Eric Adams soon to release his executive budget plan, Make the Road New York, a leading immigrant advocacy organization, is releasing a policy and budget agenda to push the mayor and City Council to adopt a more immigrant- and worker-friendly budget. 

With 25,000 members across the state, Make the Road is the largest member-based group of immigrant advocates in the state and a prominent voice for progressive legislation. The group will release its

Gov. Hochul speaks at LaGuardia Community College CUNY (photo: @CUNY)

Funding for the City University of New York, CUNY, is among a number of major focus issues as elected officials negotiate a new state budget this month and a new city budget by July.

Lawmakers, students, faculty, and others are concerned about proposals in both Governor Kathy Hochul’s and Mayor Eric Adams’ budget proposals, which are now the source of negotiations with their respective legislatures. Though Hochul included a modest increase in overall funding for CUNY in her January executive budget, she also proposed

City Council Members & advocates rally for parks funding (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)

As Mayor Eric Adams continues to propose sweeping cuts across city agencies, Council members and advocates are calling on him to restore, and increase, funding for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Mayor Adams’ proposed $102.7 billion preliminary budget provided $520 million to the parks department, a drop of $42 million compared to the budget adopted last June and nearly $58 million lower than the latest budget modification in November.

“As our council budget response made clear, the

Council Speaker Adams with BLAC members (photo: Emil Cohen/NYC Council)

As Mayor Eric Adams prepares to release his executive budget proposal, the New York City Council's Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus (BLAC) is making a push for investments in education, economic mobility, housing, and health care in neighborhoods of color.

The BLAC, co-chaired by Council Members Kevin Riley and Oswald Feliz, two Bronx Democrats, includes 34 out of 51 members on the City Council, giving it significant influence in legislative matters and city budget negotiations. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is an ex-officio

Mayor Adams & Governor Hochul (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

With a new state budget entering final negotiations, Mayor Eric Adams traveled to the state capital this week to pitch Governor Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature on his administration’s fiscal and policy priorities. Funding for migrant asylum-seekers and the MTA as well as other fiscal matters remain at the top of his list as the mayor has otherwise presented a limited policy agenda in Albany amid attempts to recalibrate his relationship with legislative leaders.

Last year, Adams’ intergovernmental and Albany

Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

With the NYPD costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year in lawsuit settlements over misconduct claims, City Council members on Wednesday questioned the city’s Law Department about its approach to defending the police department and whether the city could benefit from being less combative when taken to court for police misconduct.

A Legal Aid Society ...

MOIA Commissioner Castro, center-left, with Mayor Adams & others (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Earlier this month, Mayor Eric Adams announced the creation of a new office to handle the influx of tens of thousands of migrant asylum-seekers in the city. But, at a City Council budget hearing focused on immigration services that same day, March 7, administration officials offered barebones details about the new office’s structure and budget, and how it would interact with an existing mayoral office that is already dedicated to immigrant affairs and has been coordinating services for

Linda Johnson, Tony Marx, & Dennis Walcott (l-r) (photo: @nypl)

The leaders of New York City’s three public library systems appealed to the New York City Council on Monday for its help in pushing back against tens of millions in possible budget cuts in Mayor Eric Adams’ $102.7 billion preliminary budget plan for the 2024 fiscal year.

The New York, Brooklyn, and Queens Public Libraries, along with the city’s Research Libraries, together face a $20.5 million budget cut in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, as part of a Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG) that the mayor instituted to cut city

At a library in Queens (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The city’s public library systems launched a campaign on Monday to push back against tens of millions of dollars in budget cuts in Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget. Adams’ $102.7 billion preliminary budget for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins July 1, is now the focus of a series of City Council hearings.

For the past several months, the mayor’s budget moves have invited criticism as he pushed major cuts to city spending. Ahead of a mid-year November

City Council Member Alexa Avilés leads the NYCHA budget hearing (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)

The New York City Housing Authority is facing a fiscal crisis as rent revenue has plummeted in the wake of the pandemic, affecting its operational budget, constraining its ability to hire personnel, and forcing it to suspend dozens of infrastructure improvement projects. Amid the city's larger affordable housing and homelessness crisis, the public housing authority is also struggling with a worsening ability to get vacant units repaired and filled with new tenants, a problem apparently