Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Testimony Before New York State Senate Finance And Assembly Ways And Means Committees

February 6, 2024

State Assemblymember Fred Thiele: I'm Fred Thiele, chairman of the New York State Assembly's Local Governments Committee and I am filling in for Ways and Means Chair Helene Weinstein as Co‑Chair of today's hearing. Chair Weinstein is recovering from knee surgery and is hoping to join us soon, and by "soon" I mean maybe as soon as this afternoon.

Today we begin the eighth in a series of hearings conducted by the joint fiscal committees of the legislature regarding the governor's proposed budget for fiscal year '24‑'25. The hearings are conducted pursuant to the New York State Constitution and the legislative law.

Today the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will hear testimony concerning the governor's budget proposal for local governments.

I will now introduce the participating members from the assembly; and after that, Senator Krueger will introduce members from the Senate. In addition, Ranking Ways and Means Member Ra will introduce members from his conference.

So, Assembly Majority Members participating today. Assemblymember Braunstein, who chairs our Cities Committee, which is one of the participating committees today. Assemblymember Darling, Assemblymember Fall, Assemblymember González-Rojas, Assemblymember Mamdani, Assemblymember Sayegh, Assemblymember Shimsky, Assemblymember Simon, Assemblymember Weprin, and Assemblymember Epstein and Assemblymember Seawright. Senator?

State Senator Liz Krueger: Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. And I'm glad to be joined by my special guest partner today, Fred Thiele. Each hearing I've had a special guest Assembly leader.

I want to introduce Senator Roxanne Persaud, Senator Gounardes, Senator Sepúlveda, Senator Felder, Senator Liu, Senator Martinez, Senator May, Senator Hoylman‑Siegel, Senator Comrie, Senator Cleare. And I'm going to turn it over to my ranker on Finance, Tom O'Mara, to introduce his members.

State Senator Tom O'Mara: Thank you, Chairwoman Krueger. Good morning, everyone. On our side, we have our ranker on Local Government, Senator Steve Rhoads, our ranker on Cities Two Committee, Senator Rob Rolison, and we also have Senators Alexis Weik and George Borrello.

Senator Kreuger: Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Ra to introduce the minority members.

State Assemblymember Edward Ra: Thank you. Good morning. We have with us this morning Assemblymember Reilly, our ranker on Cities, Assemblymember Ari Brown, our ranker on Local Governments; and, members Gallhann, Gray and Tannousis.

Assemblymember Thiele: Okay. The ground rules for today before we start. The time limits for witnesses, governmental witnesses have 10 minutes, non‑governmental witnesses have three minutes. Time limits for questions and answers by legislators, the chairs of the committee relevant to each governmental witness will get 10 minutes and a second round of three minutes if desired.

Ranking members of these committees will get five minutes each. All other members of relevant committees will get three minutes each. To our witnesses, all written testimony has been submitted to the legislators in advance, so we ask that all witnesses please do not read your testimony to us. Please instead summarize.

Legislators, please let myself or Senator Krueger know if you wish to question each witness or panel of witnesses. After the opening remarks of each witness or panel of witnesses has been concluded the list will be closed.

Witnesses and legislators should locate the time clock and keep an eye on it. Please note that when the clock is down to zero, you will be alerted that your time is up.

Please be considerate and respect the clock so that everyone has a chance to be heard. Please note that these timeframes are for questioning and include both questions and answers. So, members are respectfully requested not to commence a new question within sufficient time on the clock to permit the witness to answer.

Due to the length of our hearings, we have no alternative but to strictly enforce these time limits. I should add that if any witnesses for later in the day are here and have not yet checked in, please do so at the top of the stairs.

I will now call our first witness, which is the mayor of the great City of New York, Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: I want to thank you, I want to thank you, Chair Krueger and in her absence, my long time colleague, Brooklyn colleague, Chair Weinstein, and Cities chair Sepúlveda and Braunstein, Local Government Chairs, Martinez and Thiele, and members of the Assembly Ways and Means in the Senate Finance Committees. I feel like it was only days ago that I was sitting behind that chair as the state senator serving in this body.

I am Eric Adams, the mayor of the City of New York. I'm proud to be here today with Jacques Jiha, director of our Office of Management and Budget. And as I said in my recent State of the City, our city has been a place of possibilities. It is a place where we can start a business, start a family and make your mark.

Two years ago, we came into office with a clear mission to keep the American dream burning bright and alive by protecting public safety, rebuilding our economy and making our city more livable. 24 later, it only has been two years, sometimes it's hard to believe, but being a mayor is like dog years: one day is many days.

But you look at the city, crime is down, jobs are up, and every day we are delivering for working class New Yorkers. You have been our partners. I talk about it all the time, how we were so successful in the last two years to keep New York City on its upward trajectory.

We must continue that strong participation. Protecting public safety means granting New York City the power to shut down illegal smoke shops so New Yorkers can walk down the street without being bombarded by illegal shops that operate outside the law and put New Yorkers at risk.

Rebuilding our economy means creating homes for New Yorkers that they can afford so working class families can earn a living, raise their kids and make it in the greatest city in the world. It also means preparing our young people to succeed. Reading and math test scores up and we are outpacing the state. But if we don't extend mayoral accountability, we risk going backwards.

Making the city more livable means investing in cleaner streets and more vibrant public spaces. To continue this investment, we need financial support to cover the course of the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis. These are urgent needs that support working class families in New York City, and our administration is asking for your help once again.

But first I want to thank you for your partnership in getting stuff done in New York last year. Thanks to your leadership, we will preserve more affordable housing as a result of J-51 benefits. We were able to make substantial investments in our young people's education, and we were able to defray some of the substantial costs associated with managing the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis.

New York City is proud to uphold our legacy as a city of immigrants, and we are proud that we have demonstrated leadership and compassion when so many others showed only cruelty. Over the past 22 months, we have provided more than 173,000 asylum seekers with food, medical care and shelter and education for their children.

Of those, we have helped more than 107,000, more than 60 percent, take the next step on their path to self sufficiency and the American dream. We have held tens of thousand file Temporary Protected Status, asylum and work authorization applications, bringing them one step closer to living a more stable life.

However, right now there are more than 66,000 asylum seekers still in our care. When you add in the 55,000 long-time New Yorkers in the city's DHS system, as well as others, that means we have close to three times the number of people in our shelter system than when we came into office, and it all comes at a great cost to our city.

In November, due to the growing asylum seeker humanitarian crises, sunsetting federal stimulus that was used to support vital programs and the cost of funding long‑ignored labor contracts we faced a historically large $7.1 billion budget gap. We're legally required to balance fiscal year '24 and '25 in January, so we developed our financial plan without relying on federal assistance because after many trips to Washington — 10, to be exact — I realized that the federal cavalry was not coming to the rescue.

We did not procrastinate. We knew that the faster we made the painful but necessary decisions, the faster we could stabilize the city finances. We front-loaded our implementation of the plan, which includes multiple rounds of savings through our Plan to Eliminate the Gap — or, PEG — a hiring freeze and a freeze on other than personnel services spending, among other things.

These decisions proved to be effective, resulting in a record level of $6.6 billion in PEG savings over fiscal years '24 and '25 in the November and January plans. And we accomplished all this without layoffs, without raising taxes or major disruption to city services.

Our savings include $.7 billion that we achieved by taking steps to manage the costs of providing services for new arrivals by one, reducing daily household costs, negotiating and renegotiating rates and rebidding contracts and shelters run for‑profit vendors.

Implementing intensive case management support to help asylum seekers reach their final destination and leave our care and transitioning away from the Humanitarian Relief Center model of care to non‑profit service providers.

In January, after a careful review of savings initiatives we implemented in November, we restored funding for critical initiatives protecting public safety, public spaces and young people. While these actions are important to New Yorkers, they represent less than 3 percent of the savings we achieve over the two years.

But I need to be crystal clear. Although we have stabilized our financial situation through hard work and advanced planning, we're not out of the woods. But I want you to understand that: we are not out of the woods.

While we appreciate the commitment the governor made last year to cover one‑third of the city's asylum seeker cost, this was based on the premise that the city, the state and the federal government would split the cost three ways.

The federal government has only committed $156 million, the vast majority of which we have yet to receive because of a complicated reimbursement process. Despite our efforts, we cannot assume they would give us any more.

While we are deeply grateful for the $1 billion that was appropriated in this year's state's budget, the mid‑year adjustment of nearly $900 million and the $1.1 billion in shelter costs proposed in the governor's executive budget, we're still shouldering the largest share of asylum seeker costs.

In our budget, we assumed that the state would meet its commitment to cover one-third of $10.6 billion in migrant costs over fiscal year '23 and '25. As of the governor's executive budget, the state's commitment to the city is just over $3 billion — or, roughly 28 percent — which is $400 million short.

This, along with $200 million in budgets cut hits like the Distress Hospital Fund sales tax intercept and school aid reduction grows our fiscal year '25 gap by $600 million. New York is already carrying the most of the asylum seekers. It's wrong to ask them to do more and it's put our city in a precarious position. Today, we're asking the state to increase this commitment to 50 percent of our cost.

Next, when it comes to our schools, we strongly support governor's four‑year expansion on mayoral accountability. Mayoral accountability allows us to make much needed systematic changes quickly, efficiently and equitably. Under the current system, the buck stops with me, and you've seen that we were able to produce results.

Thanks to mayoral accountability, we have improved reading and math test scores over the last two years, outpacing the state while closing racial disparities. We also launched New York City Reads, a nation‑leading curriculum that teaches our kids the fundamentals of reading.

This is more than a curriculum change, it's a reading revolution. New York City Reads has already been implemented in 90 percent of our schools. We need mayoral control to continue the success that we have produced. Chancellor Banks and I know that our public schools can change lives and produce the leaders of tomorrow.

In addition to having a good education, every child has a right to a safe, clean place to live, and that's what we want to do. And I will turn over my time, on time. 

Assemblymember Thiele: First, I'd like to add that we've been joined by Assemblymember Carroll, Assemblymember Rivera, Assemblymember Eachus, and Assemblymember Tapia.

And for our first question, I call upon Assemblymember Fall. And we are also joined by Assemblymember Taylor. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Do the Chairs first. My apologies. Assemblymember Braunstein.

State Assemblymember Edward Braunstein: Thank you, Fred. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, and your team for coming up here to join us today. You mentioned you have 66,000 asylum seekers in your care now. Does that number fluctuate, or is it typically consistent around that number?

Mayor Adams: We are getting anywhere between 2,500 to 4,000 asylum seekers a week, a week. And as they come in, with our new 30‑day initiative and 60 days with children and families, we are trying to get as many out the door as possible to be self‑sustaining.

So, that number does fluctuate and it does change based on how many we get in. From time to time, we get a surge coming from particularly the state of Texas, but the number does move from time to time.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Can you give me like a low and a high?

Mayor Adams: A low and a high of how many we get in?

Assemblymember Braunstein: How many you have at any one time. Is it sometimes you have 40,000, sometimes you have 80,000?

Mayor Adams: No, we have never gotten down to those numbers. We had, as I indicated, 172,000 total. We were able to get 60 percent out of care, but it has never gone down below around 60,000.

Assemblymember Braunstein: And what's been the highest?

Mayor Adams: 173,000…

Assemblymember Braunstein: In your care at one time?

Mayor Adams: At one time, the highest number probably been around roughly 100,000.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay. So, right now it's at 66,000, but there was a time when you had 100,000.

Mayor Adams: Yes. And the reason we were able to move from the high watermark of having over 100,000 is because of the initiatives we put in place to have people being self‑sustaining.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay. You let the current... The recent financial plan, the state sets aside $1.9 billion for the city to assist with asylum seekers. How much of that money have you drawn down?

Mayor Adams: Well, the current amount, you have the current numbers, Jacques?

Jacques Jiha, Director, Office of Management and Budget: Yes. Yes. As of the end of December,  we submitted invoices for about, because these are liquidated invoices as per the agreement with the state, about $1.2 billion, but we only get credit for 28 percent.

Assemblymember Braunstein: So, out of the 1.9, you've put in requests for 1.2?

Jiha: $1.2 billion.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay.

Mayor Adams: And Assemblyman, we should be clear, it's not a dollar for dollar reimbursement, but both on the federal level and on the state level. If it was dollar for dollar it would be easy for us to draw down on it, but we only get a 20, 20… 

Jiha: 28 percent.

Mayor Adams: ...28 percent based on the dollar we submit. So, if we submit $100, we would get 28 percent of that returned to us.

Assemblymember Braunstein:Okay. The governor's executive budgets sets aside 2.4 billion to help with the asylum seekers. How would you spend that money?

Mayor Adams: Some of it is going to be spent already on the Humanitarian Relief Centers that we have in place and it's going to be spent on housing and some of the other needs that come with asylum seekers. We have to, and I think it's important for all of us to know, we have to take the full care of the asylum seekers. That's cleaning, housing, feeding, everything a family needs, we're picking up the course for those needs.

Assemblymember Braunstein: So, let's talk about Humanitarian Relief Centers, right? Those are generally the tents like you have at Floyd Bennett Field, I have one at Creedmoor in my district. In my district, we have, you know, it's a tent, it's 1,000 single men, it's in the middle of a residential community, there's a school across the street, there's a senior center next door.

It's been problematic for the community, you know, without question. And here in your testimony you tout that you're transitioning away from the Humanitarian Relief Center model. So, I guess for my constituents we want to know how long can we expect this Creedmoor site to be there, and is there an end date in sight?

Mayor Adams: And Assemblyman, I grew up in Queens, and I know that community very well. And what your residents are feeling is what I would feel if it was on 134th Street, or 167th Street, I should say, where my mother's house is. This should not be happening to your community. This should not be happening to Floyd Bennett Field. This should not be happening anywhere in our city.

And no, I don't see relief in sight. I see that everyone is starting to ship migrants and asylum seekers to New York City. It's happening every day, and there's not any relief in sight. And that's why I went down to the southern border, that's why I went to South America, and what I saw down there is telling me there is no relief in sight for us.

Assemblymember Braunstein: So, you mentioned that at one time you had 100,000 asylum seekers in your care, you're currently at 66,000. So, where are the other, you know, at some point there was 100,000, that extra 30,000, where were they being housed?

Mayor Adams: What we did, we realized that we were not going to receive financial assistance the way we deserved from the federal government. There was no solution or plan coming from the Congress or from Washington, D.C.

We knew we had to put in place a two‑pronged plan: one, we had to decrease the number of our census that was in our care. That's why we did the 30‑day and the 60‑day program. 80 percent of the people that we put in the 30‑day program were able to self‑sustain themselves. We did a reticketing program, because many people came here and did not want to come to New York, we were able to send them to their final destination.

And others were able to find their way, like many of our immigrant families have done in generations prior. And that's how we were able to bring down the number out of care.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Yeah, but that's not my.... My question is, if at one time you were housing 100,000 and now you're housing 66,000.

Mayor Adams: Mmm? We're at 67,000, as Jacques just shared with me. Both, when we looked at the number I've given you of 100,000, that is the asylum seekers plus the long‑term traditional New Yorkers who were in our homeless shelter system. It's a combination of the two.

Assemblymember Braunstein: So, then we got the numbers crossed up. We'll follow up on that. Finally, I just want to get back to the Creedmor tent.

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm?

Assemblymember Braunstein: If the numbers come down, do we have your commitment that the tents will be the first places taken offline?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. If the numbers come down… 

Assemblymember Braunstein: If the asylum secret numbers come down and you start having the opportunity to move people out of shelter will the tents be the first places to be taken off the line or will you start moving people out of hotels and keep the tents up?

Mayor Adams: No. Our goal is to move people out of the tents; and as soon as we can move those people out of the tents, we're going to do that. It's costly. It is not the ideal situation for people to be in, and it's not good for the communities that they're located in. So, our goal is to move people out of the tents as we deal with this shifting emergency.

And I want to be clear on these numbers, at the low end of 2,500 a week, that's 10,000 a month that we have to find care for. So we have to be very clear on what on administration has done: 10,000 people a month we have to find care for. We don't want to put people in tents. We have been placed in an unsustainable situation.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay, I'm just going to shift to one more topic while I've got 10 minutes left. The city's moving forward to implement Local Law 97. I represent... The affordable housing in my district is co‑op housing. It's garden apartments, it's seniors on fixed income, young families starting out.

The lawyers for the co‑ops are telling us that to comply with Local Law 97, they're looking at increasing everybody's monthly maintenance costs 15 percent. And remember, that's before property taxes, which these co‑op owners under our unfair property tax system pay some of the highest effective property tax rates in the city already. They're looking at an increased maintenance cost of 15 percent per month.

We've suggested the city work with us on a tax abatement, property tax abatement, to help some of these buildings comply with Local Law 97. I'll tell you, a lot of them are just looking now to just figure out how they're going to pay the penalty, they're not even thinking about how they're going to comply.

Would your administration be willing to work with us to try and find a way to offer a property tax abatement to incentivize some of these co‑ops to comply with the new energy mandates?

Mayor Adams: Yes, more than willing. You know, my first apartment was a... I should say, my second apartment was a co‑op. I know what it is to have working class people living a co‑op. That is where their value is and that's where the large amount of their assets.

We would love to sit down with you and figure out how we can be as helpful as possible. And we've taken some major steps just to try to minimize the pain to those co‑ops and property owners. But I agree with you 100 percent.

Assemblymember Braunstein: All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you, Chair Braunstein.

Senator Kreuger: Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Mayor Adams: Good morning.

Senator Kreuger: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Just for people who don't know ‑‑ both the panel and the guests — you have to press the button pretty hard to go from green to red and red to green. And so we've all been practicing. So, it's not you, it's that the systems are brand new. Thank you. Our first up is the Chair, Senator Sepulveda.

State Senator Luis Sepúlveda: Good morning, Mayor, good morning… 

Mayor Adams: How are you, senator?

Senator Sepúlveda: Good morning, Senator Savino. Good seeing you. So, I've been on a mission for about two years now to reform the property tax system in New York City. I've done extensive research about what it can do to help develop affordable housing in the City of New York. And I think it would be a monumental shift in policy for the city to transform the property tax system.

Just recently, I attended the hearing at the Tax Equity Now New York LLC case v. New York City at the Court of Appeals and sat for the entire argument. And based on my 31 years being an attorney, I believe the city is going to lose that case. Is the city prepared to comply with that case in the event that you lose the case in a couple of months? The decision will be rendered. Is the city prepared to take actions to modify the property tax system in the City of New York?

Mayor Adams: Senator, thank you for that. One of the original lawsuits was with Martha Stark who used to be the finance chair. I was going to sign on as amicus court brief, but I couldn't: my property in Bed‑Stuy is hit with unfair taxes as well.

And we're not ready right now. We are looking internally of how to do what many administrations have attempted to do to adjust this unfair property tax system. There's several proposals, even the comptroller put in place… Put forward a proposal. We want to continue to move this forward in the next year or so and get this addressed.

Senator Sepúlveda: Very good. Thank you, because I believe that that's a major step when we're talking about affordable housing and developing more affordable housing, I think that would be a major step to correcting some of these issues.

Now, there have been a lot of discussions up here and in the city over housing itself. So, can you tell us, based on your information, what would happen if Albany up here doesn't act?

Mayor Adams: If Albany fails to act?

Senator Sepúlveda: Yes.

Mayor Adams: We're dealing with an inventory problem. Even with our expansion of the FHEPS vouchers, many people are walking around with FHEPS vouchers in their possession, but they cannot find housing. Our battle is an inventory problem as well as an affordability problem.

And so that is why we present several initiatives in partnership with the governor. We have [136 million] square feet of available office space that can be converted. We can raise our FAR, we could also come up with a real tax incentive, and I think there's a place to have tenant protections.

I think it's time for us to come together and come up and deal with the inventory crisis that we're facing, and if we don't, we're going to continue to see an increase in our shelter population.

Senator Sepúlveda: Well, as chair of City One, I'm here to make sure that we do everything we can to address these issues. Now, can the city help low and moderate income owners finance potential conversions of basements to create more inventory?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and that is part of the proposal that we put forward and that's part of the proposal that the governor has included in her budget. We have many basements and all other dwellings from grandparents, additional houses on properties [inaudible] used to help with the housing crisis that we're facing.

We have to think differently about building housing, and that's one of the proposals in our City of Yes plan that we put in place. Many of the areas in the city, they have not participated in building affordable housing. And we have had development and zoning rules that have really prevented our city from being integrated at the level that it ought to.

Senator Sepúlveda: And discuss with us the benefits of extending the 421‑a tax exemption program for the City of New York.

Mayor Adams: Many properties, many projects, we did not put a shovel in the ground, senator, due to Covid. And it really prevented the level of development that we deserved. And when you look at the numbers that we presented and the large number of housing we built, 51 percent was dealing with 421‑a.

So, if you remove, if we don't have some form of tax incentive, no matter what the name of it is, it is going to prevent the level of building that we need to deal with the housing crisis that we're facing.

So, I'm hoping that our lawmakers will look at the success that we had and realize the role that 421‑a played as we continue to look at how we find that balance of tenant protection as well as building new units of housing as we do also rehab units of housing.

Senator Sepúlveda: Let me shift topic a little bit here. The executive budget proposed increasing the transitional financing authority bonding from $13.5 billion to $19.5 billion from July 1st, 2024, from $19.5 billion to $25.5 billion beginning July 1st, 2025. This cap hasn't increased since 2009. What necessitates the increase in bonding authority?

Mayor Adams: A combination of things. We have some huge capital obligations that's in front of us, everything from building four new jails, the BQE, class size. When you look at the capital initiatives we have coming through the School Construction Authority, we have real capital obligations.

And if we don't raise our limit and allow us to do so, it is going to impact many of those major projects that we have in front of us. We have to be able to raise the cap so that we can reach our building obligations that's being handed down to us.

Senator Sepúlveda: On the public safety front, one of the issues that's discussed in my district, especially at the community boards, is the issue of e‑bike safety. We've proposed, several of us have proposed legislation to combat the issue with e‑bikes on streets, the danger, the crime that's committed with these e‑bikes.

What steps is the city taking or can the city take with our assistance, if possible, to combat the issue of these e‑bikes that are essentially creating unsafe environments in our communities?

Mayor Adams: Well, I'm not the choir, I wrote the song on this one. Every community meeting I attended and my town halls this topic comes up. We had a reuse of our streets after Covid. After Covid, there was a large use of online ordering, restaurants ordering, and it gave a boom to e‑bikes, micro mobility.

And we have to now adjust to that, and we have the several phases that we're doing. Number one, education. We want to partner with our e‑delivery services, our restaurants and those who are considered deliveristas that we were able to increase and give them the pay that they deserve to educate them on how to properly use the streets.

Number two, enforcement. We’ve removed thousands of illegal mopeds and e‑bikes off our streets. Many of them were being used for illegal means, they were being used to commit crimes. They were unregistered, many of them were stolen, so we did the proper enforcement.

And then we want to partner with the City Council to put in place a real registration program so that we could identify those who are abusers and make sure that we're taking those bikes off the streets so they won't continue to be used illegally in the process.

Senator Sepúlveda: Well, mayor, I proposed legislation to do exactly that at the state level. I hope that I can get the city's support to pass this legislation, because it's going to require registration, it's going to require certain requirements of those that sell the e‑bikes and certain safety measures that train people to use e‑bikes, to register, to get insurance, things of that nature. And I look forward to the city's support with that.

Mayor Adams: And we need to do that. But I also want to be clear, when it comes to pedestrian fatalities, what we have done in the city, we have the lowest pedestrian fatalities since 1910. That's how well we are doing with our Vision Zero. We have a long way to go. We're nowhere near to zero that we're looking for. But we've made some real improvements with Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez over at the DOT, and we're going to continue to do so. But e‑bikes is one of our areas of focus.

Senator Sepúlveda: Thank you for that, mayor. Now, one last question. Senator Comrie and I believe Assemblywoman Rajkumar have a bill, the SMOKEOUT bill on illegal smoke shops that we have in the city. Now, you had indicated that if we give you the authority to be able to close them down, that you can do it in 30 days.

Mayor Adams: Yes, I can. And my hats… 

Senator Sepúlveda: Can you [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: ...off to Senator Comrie and Assemblywoman Rajkumar, because this important initiative that came out of the state, what you wanted to accomplish is going up in smoke. And there are too many illegal shops, and I think all of you are experiencing this, not only localized to New York City. The dream of legalizing cannabis is going in the wrong direction. And if I'm given the authority to locally address this problem, we will rid our city of illegal smoke shops in a 30‑day period.

Senator Sepúlveda: Thank you, mayor. Now, just a statement I want to make is that the issue with the migrant crisis is something that's unprecedented in the history of the City of New York. And I know there are many critics about what you've done, but there was no blueprint to help the city do that.

So, I want to congratulate, at least taking a humane position and understanding that these people coming here, many of them for a better life. And we know there have been incidents of crime recently that don't bode well for them.

Senator Krueger: Senator...

Senator Sepúlveda: I hope not everyone's painted with the same brush, but thank you for your position [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: I have to be the [mean one] to cut you off. Thank you, Senator Sepúlveda. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Yes, thank you, Senator. We are joined also by Assemblymember Seawright and Assemblymember Taylor. And our next questioner is our Assembly Cities Ranker, Assemblymember Reilly, for five minutes.

State Assemblymember Michael Reilly: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good morning, how are you?

Assemblymember Reilly: So lately, of course, in the news, we've seen recently with the asylum seekers, the migrants, with the involvement with the New York City Police Department, especially in Times Square, the issues have arisen that you know, you have an executive order, you have a state of emergency.

Will you commit to or consider issuing an executive order that will resist or take away the restraints that the NYPD and other law enforcement have to have collaboration with federal ICE so that those who commit crimes like that are actually notified at the federal level so they can look to remove them? What's your stance on that, and would you consider that?

Mayor Adams: Well, first, the incident that we all are familiar with that took place in Manhattan was despicable. And the actions of what you saw there is not a reflection of the over 100,000 migrants and asylum seekers who are in our city.

Assemblymember Reilly: So, Mr. Mayor, let me be clear. I'm not saying that the NYPD should notify on all asylum seekers. I understand that we have the Sanctuary City law. But the idea of an executive order would be to suspend it for [inaudible]. And I think there's an ability to do that. So, that's my question for you, is that something you will consider?

Mayor Adams: Well, first, I didn't think you were saying that it was for everyone, and you and I share the same vision. Those who come here should have the opportunity. There was a law that was passed by the City Council that made the decision that we could not cooperate with ICE. It was a law. I cannot turn back that law. That's the City Council's action, and the City Council must make that decision.

I believe if you create repeated felonies in our city, the federal government should do its job and have that individual deported from our city. There is a privilege to be here and participate in the American dream. I don't have the authority to do that. The City Council will have to do that.

Assemblymember Reilly: So, I'm going to reiterate the executive order position here. You issued an executive order, declared a state of emergency in the city. You suspended the shelter laws, which were created by the City Council. There's an ability to suspend laws that were created by the City Council. That's what the idea of the executive order is. And I don't mean it in any disrespect that way.

Mayor Adams: No, I don't think you take it as that.

Assemblymember Reilly: I'm just trying to explain it to the audience and to the people that why I'm addressing this question. You have the ability to issue that executive order to suspend that law temporarily, whether it's up to five days or it can be extended at that time. Will you do that?

Mayor Adams: As I indicated, shared with you, as you saw, we have one case in Staten Island that the Staten Island judge made an opinion, a decision that we were overreaching our executive order authority. If I could have the authority, and if my team, legal team tells me, I have the authority to have cooperation with ICE for those who commit felony, dangerous crimes, that is something we would love to entertain and to look at.

Assemblymember Reilly: So, you mentioned the case in Staten Island.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Assemblymember Reilly: It automatically was appealed...

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm.

Assemblymember Reilly: ...and then fast forward, the same type of argument the city presented in Manhattan was actually decided in that case in Staten Island. So, the ability for the city to address the migrant asylum crisis was given the opportunity with the decision in Staten Island.

So, why did the city appeal instead of allowing that decision to stand and it would have helped in the Right to Shelter case?

Mayor Adams: No…

Assemblymember Reilly: Instead, it moved forward in Manhattan Court.

Mayor Adams: No, it's interpreted that it may have helped. We don't believe it would have helped. Our goal is to ensure that the Right to Shelter ruling is not dealing with the migrant and asylum seeker crisis. That's two different incidents.

The Right to Shelter that was put in place over 40 years ago was dealing with those New Yorkers that needed shelter, those few men. It did not deal with a migrant and asylum crisis, and that is what we want to get classified in the court, and that is what we are fighting for right now.

Assemblymember Reilly: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, just to be clear, I think an executive order allowing ICE to be notified by the NYPD will restore public safety and will also build morale in the NYPD, because right now, I think there's low morale because of that.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you, Assemblymember Reilly.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Senator Roxanne Persaud. Oh, I'm sorry. Another rule for the day. If somebody is called up and they need a microphone, someone else kindly gives them their seat. Thank you.

State Senator Roxanne Persaud: Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Mayor and team.

Mayor Adams: Good morning.

Senator Persaud: Thank you for being here. I just have a few questions pertaining to social services and the amount of funding that is being used to provide resources to the immigrant population that we are experiencing now. Could you tell us that cost?

Mayor Adams: The cost of those services?

Senator Persaud: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Jacques, would you give some numbers for us?

Jiha: Yes [inaudible] about $4.2 billion this year, and about $4.9 billion next year. And it covers everything, ranging from housing… 

It covers everything ranging from housing to security and you know, food and everything. So, I don't know if that's what you're referring to, the overall costs.

Senator Persaud: All costs.

Jiha: Yes.

Senator Persaud: So, we know that food, the issue of food in the migrant community is, it's become an issue. And last week you announced the shift that you are going to, that your administration is going to, instead of giving food, you're going to be giving prepaid cards.

And so people are asking us, as a social services committee, why is that? And I think we also had people who were not aware not everyone in housing, in temporary housing, gets certain accommodations. And the conversations that you're only giving this accommodation to this population, could you address that?

Mayor Adams: There's one thing I learned in New York. New Yorkers are very opinionated, and they share their thoughts. And so first, we want to dismiss misinformation. We're not giving people American Express cards. We found that the food delivery service that we set up during the emergency, we could find a better way to do it.

we could find a better way to do it, in our belief that we want to cut 20 percent of the migrant cost. So, we have a pilot project with 500 people, that we are giving them a food card.

So, instead of a debit card, instead of having to deliver food and have people eat food that we were seeing waste in food, they are now able to get their own food that is going to be spent $12 a day. So, we're going to save money on delivery. We're going to save money on people wasting food. And this is a pilot project we're going to use that is going to save us $6.7 million a year.

And if the pilot turns out to be successful, then we're going to expand it not only with the migrants and asylum seekers, we will look to do that expansion throughout the entire system. We're trying to find smarter, more cost‑effective ways to deal with this crisis that was dropped in our lap.

Senator Persaud: Okay, thank you. My time is up already. Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. We've been joined by Assemblymember De Los Santos, Assemblymember Rajkumar, Assemblymember Simone, Assemblymember Levenberg. And our next questioner is Assemblymember Fall for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Charles Fall: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mayor...

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Assemblymember Fall: ...for being here, but also I really want to thank your team for the incredible work that they do with my office. Every time I call, they're very responsive. So, always got to give kudos to your incredible team that's here.

You know, public safety is a big priority for me, so the fact that your administration has removed thousands of guns off of our streets makes a difference. We truly appreciate that. The North Shore Action Plan you have with Councilmember Hanks, you know, I think it shows what the vision is for the North Shore of Staten Island.

And as far as Lower Manhattan, the issues that EDC has tried to address with the helicopter issues as far as quality of life, I appreciate all the work that's being done there.

I want to bring the issue related to DEP. Obviously, every time it rains we have heavy flooding that's taking place out on Staten Island, certain parts of Lower Manhattan. What could I share with my constituents on the short‑term measures that the city has taken and long‑term measures that you look to accomplish in the future to prevent such flooding?

Mayor Adams: Thank you, Assemblymember. First off, thank you for your kind words. And we try to be one of the most accessible administrations we want to be in the history of the city. I took a drive out to Staten Island, I think it was at that time Senator Savino who's here with us now, she was a senator at the time, and saw firsthand of the impact of the water damage that happens after a storm.

And there's a short term, there's a long term, and there's a mid term plan. Long term, we really have to deal with the environmental crisis that we're facing. And just in with the climate changes is going to include, number one, shoring up our shorelines of making, Rit Aggarwal, who's my DEP commissioner, is part of our most recent plan and PlaNYC, our PlaNYC proposal shows how we're looking throughout the entire city in general.

But specifically in areas like Staten Island, the Lower East Side, out in the Rockaways, Jamaica Bay Area, how we're using several different coastal flood protections, flood protection for building, cloudbursts, something that we're using a lot of, combined sewer overflow management, something that's important that we're doing, green infrastructure sewer repair.

So, there's a short‑term, a mid‑term and a long‑term plan. This environmental crisis we face is going to take all three levels of approaches, and that's what our DEP is doing.

Assemblymember Fall: Gotcha. I only have 20 seconds left, so I do want to close your attention. Stapleton Projects, the Carter Center, the provider there needs to change. It's not working for the community. It hasn't been working for over a decade. We need to see some improvements there and I also would love to have...

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry, I didn't get that, where was...?

Assemblymember Fall: The Carter Center in Stapleton, and we would love to have a fast ferry from Staten Island to Brooklyn.

Mayor Adams: I would like that also.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Next up is my friend Senator Borrello, who I don't think has ever visited New York City, so… Maybe you want to visit… Have him come.

Mayor Adams: I'm going to invite you to a Broadway play.

Senator Krueger: I know all, just sayin'.

State Senator George Borrello: First of all, Mayor Adams, thank you for being here.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Senator Borrello: Diane Savino's looking at me like, be nice, so!

Look,  we all know that the root cause of the problems that you're experiencing with the migrant crisis is the fact that the Biden administration has failed to secure our border. Okay, that's the disease that has to be cured, the rest of us are just trying to manage the symptoms. So, I understand that's the position that you're in.

But if I heard you correctly, you're saying it's about a $10 billion cost this year. The federal government has not stepped up, and you would like the state to increase that $2.4 billion to like $5 billion? Is that… Is that… Is that correct?

Mayor Adams: No, first level is the state agreed to a third, we would like to get them to the third. And the reason they agreed to the third, because it was going to break it down a third for the feds, a third for the city and a third for the state. The feds never gave their third, so we're getting 70 percent of the burden.

And we're saying that we're the economic engine of the state, and we've always been here for the state. We need the state now to be here for us in the city.

Senator Borrello: So, you reached out to the federal government. They originally agreed to the third; or, was that the proposal and they just decided to...

Mayor Adams: They never agreed to the third. That was the decision that was made here in Albany that we would divide it in three ways. We never thought we would get a third from the federal government.

Senator Borrello: Okay. So, what kind of response do you get from the federal government about, you know, essentially, I mean, are you calling on the federal government to secure the border to help stop this?

Mayor Adams: I'm calling for our partners in the Senate, in Congress and the White House to come up with a real solution for immigration reform so that cities like New York, Chicago, Houston and others are not going through this. Cities should not be dealing with a national crisis.

Senator Borrello: I understand that's the narrative, that we need to have comprehensive immigration reform. But that's like somebody walking into an emergency room with symptoms of a heart attack and the doc says, well, I can't treat your heart attack until we address your diet and exercise regimen.

No, we have to address the security threat first and foremost. But so with that being said, my next question is, New York City remains a sanctuary city, which is a welcome mat to people across the world to come here. Do you stand on the policy that New York City should remain a sanctuary city?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I do. I think that being a sanctuary city is the origin of all of us. All of us came from some level of immigration. But I think that those who come here and abuse our good nature, they need to be dealt with on a federal level, deported, and that's the type of abuse.... 

Senator Borrello: Well, there's no way to distinguish that. The bottom line is that New York City remains a sanctuary city. That is what's drawing people here. I know we want to blame Governor Abbott, but that's only about 10 percent of the folks who are actually bussed here. In fact, many of them are coming from NGOs that are being funded by the federal government that are bringing them here to New York.  Once again, we need to repeal the sanctuary status in order to stop the flow so you can manage the situation as best as you can.

Mayor Adams: No, I don't think people come here because we're a sanctuary city. I think they come here because we're the greatest city on the globe. And that's why the World Cup decided to come here. You know, we're the greatest city and the greatest state on the globe.

And when I was in South America, people wanted to come, they thought this was the start of the American dream. That's what I believe.

Senator Borrello: God bless you and good luck.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you, Senator. Assemblymember Mamdani. Three minutes.

State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good morning, Assemblymember, Good to see you.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Good to see you as well. Mr. Mayor, Columbia and NYU are two of the largest property owners in New York City yet are exempted from paying $327 million a year in property taxes, all because of an exemption granted to them by the state constitution. Would you support ending this exemption?

Mayor Adams: I would entertain that. I would like to see what the exemption is looking like. I think at this time, everyone needs to participate. And I think there are ways of using those institutions. They all need to do more and give more.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Thank you. Mayor Adams, in your testimony you spoke of the importance of legal requirements and you've also described yourself as a law and order mayor. Is that correct?

Mayor Adams: I like to believe that.

Assemblymember Mamdani: So, on to my question. We have the slowest buses in the country, and recognizing the need to speed up our buses, the law required you to build 20 miles of bus lanes in 2022. In that year, you built 12.9 miles. The law then required you to build 30 miles of bus lanes in 2023, you built 7.8 miles. How can you call yourself a law and order mayor when New Yorkers can't trust you to follow the law?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that first of all, that's an unfair accusation. I spent 22 years of my life following, protecting and ensuring the law is followed. And so when you cannot fulfill a requirement of building a number of bus lanes to all of a sudden to say that, you know, you don't believe in law and order, I think that's a far stretch.

We've done an amazing job of building bus lanes, and what I did that was different from previous administrations, I did something revolutionary. I allowed communities to communicate. We spoke with community residents. We heard from them. So, in addition to being a law and order mayor, I'm a mayor that listens to communities.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Okay. Well, I would just say that in a time when you have spoken a lot about fiscal prudence, the Citizens Budget Commission has said that speeding up our buses by just 15 percent would save the MTA more than $260 million a year.

Moving on to my final question, Mayor Adams, more than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel over the last four months with more than 7,000 still missing under the rubble. How many more Palestinians have to be killed for you to call for a ceasefire?

Mayor Adams: Well, I've been extremely clear on calling for anything that's an end in this conflict. Bring the hostages home. Free the hostages.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Absolutely.

Mayor Adams: I saw what happened on October 7th. I saw the despicable act of Hamas. I saw our babies were killed. And so no innocent family should die on the Palestinian side or on the Israeli side. And we need to be extremely clear. My record is sound and solid on fighting on behalf of people in this city and across the globe.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Would you...

Mayor Adams: …is sound and solid. And I don't think anyone who's come on this scene recently can look at my 30‑year uninterrupted history on fighting on behalf of Palestinian, Jews, African American, LGBTQ, AAPI. I have a solid record, Brother, and you cannot come up against it.

Assemblymember Mamdani: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. We've been joined by Robert Jackson, and next up is Senator Hoylman-Sigal.

State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back to Albany.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Senator Hoylman-Sigal: As you know, the executive budget, as was mentioned, includes $2.4 billion in supplemental aid to the City of New York. Over the last year, you've announced a series of cuts to various programs, including libraries, various 3K and sanitation. I appreciate that you've restored some of those cuts, but as I understand it, you're still planning to cut up to $1.2 billion in your next budget, and we know in my district that libraries are still closed on Sundays. If you do get this $2.4 billion — that's a pretty big tin cup — do we have your commitment that all the cuts will be restored to at least where they were in the FY24 inactive budget?

Mayor Adams: Senator, this is a moving crisis that, as I indicated earlier to Assemblyman Braunstein, that we don't see an end to, and year after year we have to fulfill our obligation of balancing our budget. We were able to restore cuts to the NYPD class, to the libraries, we were able to restore some of the cuts to our education, through the Department of Education, to our parks, our Fire Department.

We were able to do that because we successfully brought down the population of the number of migrants and asylum seekers we had in our care. We were successfully able to do that. In addition to that, we have bettered than expected revenues to do so.

So, as much as we could prevent the upcoming PEGs, we would like to do so, and as much as we could bring down the population in care, we will continue to look of how we could restore. But we're not out of the woods. We're long out of the woods.

Senator Hoylman-Sigal: So, are you saying that the $2.4 billion isn't enough?

Mayor Adams: No. No, it is not. We need more. We are… 

Senator Hoylman-Sigal: Is there a number?

Mayor Adams: Jacques, do we have an exact number?

Jiha: We talk about 50 percent of the cost, because currently the $2.4 billion you're referring, it's only $1.1 billion in new commitment to the city. Okay? And we already had like 1.9 already accounted for.

So, it's only $1.1 billion of new commitment that the state needs. So, a portion of it is for the tents, the HERRCs, the Creedmors, the Randalls Islands, that was already budgeted for, that was already included in the budget. So, the only thing that is new is $1.1 billion.

Senator Hoylman-Sigal: In my last 30 seconds, is the language in the executive budget on giving localities the authority to close illegal cannabis shops sufficient for you to do the job?

Mayor Adams: It moves us in the right direction, but it's not going to fulfill what needs to be done. Local authorities should address the cannabis issue. Not being heavy‑handed, but being able to close down the shop and hold people responsible.

Senator Hoylman-Sigal: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Weprin for three minutes.

State Assemblymember David Weprin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for coming up here with your team. And I think I've worked with each and every one of the members of your team on many issues, and I appreciate your close relationship with the state legislature. Possibly you're having served in the state senate for many years may have contributed to that.

I am, well, I am chair of the Assembly Insurance Committee and have worked very closely with Chris Ellis, who's here, dealing with small contractors, including many small businesses and MWBEs, who often struggle to find competitive insurance options and meet the standards required for public construction projects.

Last year, with Chris and his team's assistance, we passed legislation to remove the prohibition on using Owner‑Controlled Insurance Policies — OSIPs — allowing city departments like Department of Ed, New York City IDA, Health + Hospitals and the New York City Housing Authority to authorize contracts on certain projects.

This bill was signed into law by Governor Hochul on October 25th of last year and took effect immediately. I'd like to inquire, and maybe Chris has been monitoring it, the status of the implementation of these contracts and what impact has it had in the city and the departments handling these contracts. And have the awarded contracts been representative of the MWBEs that we hoped would benefit from this legislation.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. You have been a partner on so many different initiatives throughout the years, Assemblyman. We want to thank you for that.

The city is now working to roll out the program, particularly around MWBEs and our construction contracts, so we are in the process of rolling out the program.

Assemblymember Weprin: Thank you. And if you could kind of give me an indication, I know it's recent, the law just went into effect, but if you could monitor it and maybe have someone get back to me as to how many contracts have taken place and what the effect of the legislation has been.

Mayor Adams: Well, Chris does not, he does not fail to remind us you're one of his favorite assembly persons, so I'm sure he's gonna reach out to you.

Assemblymember Weprin: Okay, thank you.

Senator Krueger: Okay. Thank you, sorry. Next up is Senator Felder.

State Senator Simcha Felder: Good morning.

Mayor Adams: Hey, how are you, Senator? Good to see you.

Senator Felder: Thank you, Senator Krueger, for allowing me to ask a question, and good morning, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for schlepping up Albany.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Senator Felder: As you know very well, New York special needs children and their families are hurting and have been hurting for a very long time. I know that you inherited these issues from previous administrations, but that cannot be an excuse for us not to take everything, do everything possible to help these families.

In July, a federal judge ordered the city's education department to implement approximately 40 reforms to be in compliance with federal law and improve special education services in the city. It's my understanding based on the special monitor's report that some of the deadlines have been met, others have not been met.

Now, these issues have been neglected for a very long time, and that's why I was so moved when you were ran for mayor, you chose to speak about your personal experience with dyslexia, a learning disability that was discovered late in life. You have made great progress for children with dyslexia in the city, and you've kept the issue at the forefront.

But the priority stated in your first State of the City address, and I quote, as someone who struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability, Mayor Adams is committed to giving students with learning disabilities the tools they need to succeed.

The fact is that today children and families with special needs... Children with special needs and their families are hurting terribly. And it is a crisis that's been going on for a long time. So, my question to you today is, how are we going to work together to finally resolve this issue?

You know, I'm not looking for 100 percent, I know that's impossible. But we can't say that just because something's been going on for a very long time that we can't do anything about it. And I'm begging you, you know, that's my question, what are we going to do to finally get our hands around this problem to resolve it?

Mayor Adams: Well said, Senator. And really my first introduction into this was Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon and the work she has done. We... The administration added $490 million to Carter cases. And this is not enough. The real price tag is about a $1 billion and we cannot continue to deny these families. I agree with you 100 percent and we're going to continue to do what we have to do to look after these families.

Senator Krueger: Now I have to be mean to you, Mr. Mayor, and cut you off. Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Epstein for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Harvey Epstein: Thank you, Chair, and Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here and for your work. So, just to be clear, you support tenant protections, good cause in all city residential buildings that are not subject to rent regulation?

Mayor Adams: I support a version of tenant protection. I'm a small property owner, and I know what tenant protection is. Every one of my tenants signed a lease that I will never raise their rent as long as they're in, so I support tenants. And there's a place we can all come together that we could build and protect.

Assemblymember Epstein: That's great, mayor. And so we have a lot of expiring used 421‑a buildings. There's every year thousands of units come out of rent regulation because they were pre‑2013 rent regulated because of 421‑a. We don't have a lot of tools right now to be able to continue to regulate those units and keep those as affordable housing.

I'm wondering, are there other tools that you're looking for, for HPD, for those old expiring 421-a units? We have a bill, Senator Cleare and I, about helping those units maintain affordability around some condo conversions. But I'm seeing what else your office is doing to protect those units that are coming out of rent regulation.

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, I presented this when I was a state senator and we reached a roadblock because of the releasing of information. We need to use technology better to identify our entire housing stock that should be protected and we should identify when it's about to leave for whatever reason, if it's in court or if there's some form of landlord abuse so that we can give it the resources that they deserve.

We're hemorrhaging affordable units and we're finding out after we lose them. We have to use technology better to stop hemorrhaging these units.

Assemblymember Epstein: So, I know Senator Cleare and I as well as other folks want to work with your office to try to retain all those affordable units, because the more we lose some here, the more the crisis is going to exacerbate.

You know, we talked a lot about basement apartments and legalization of cellar and basement apartments. Can you tell us, you know, what the opportunity will be this year to try to get those units legalized and what the city would do if we allowed you to modify the MDL to legalize those units?

Mayor Adams: The goal is to... The cost of legalizing those units is extremely high and the goal is to be able to offset the cost and give the support to those families who would like to legalize those units; and by having that authorization, it's going to move us forward in the right direction to do so.

Assemblymember Epstein: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to turn to cannabis. Do you think what the governor's proposing now will allow you to paddock all the legal establishments so they can no longer operate; and if not, what other authority do you need?

Mayor Adams: No. The proposal, it's a step in the right direction. It's an acknowledgement that this is a process that has gotten out of control. But the authorizations we need is to do the inspections. Right now, police officers, the sheriff cannot go in and do the actual inspections unless it's cigarettes.

Assemblymember Epstein: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Chair Kreuger: Thank you. Assemblymember…

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much for being here. I want to start asking about housing, obviously, it's the issue that everyone is grappling with and talking about.

I know that the city through its City of Yes proposal has talked about leveraging religious institutions and bringing them in as partners for the construction of housing. This is something that you worked on even at the borough president's office.

With the City of Yes proposal for religious institutions, how many units of housing that will help us unlock across the city? What are the administration's projections for how much housing can be created by leveraging religious institutions?

Mayor Adams: And first, I want to correct something if it was misspoke. We never, I never stated that the governor is paying 50 percent of our migrant costs. I just want to be clear on that, because somehow that was misinterpreted. The number of exact units that we projected, do we have an exact number? Our goal of… 

Jiha: It's half a million.

Mayor Adams: Yes...

First Deputy Mayor Shenna Wright: City of Yes is 100,000.

Mayor Adams: The City of Yes is 100,000, but our overall goal is to get 500,000 units. But the City of Yes is 100,000.

Senator Gounardes: Okay. One of the things in the City of Yes proposal with religious institutions, it's a bill that Assemblymember Cunningham and I are working on, do that statewide. We like the idea of partnering with religious institutions.

We think the greatest opportunity is in New York City just given the number of institutions we have. And so we'd love to work with you more on how we can both advance the City of Yes proposal there, also our state‑wide legislation to make these institutions partners to create the type of affordable housing that we need. I want to shift gears… 

Mayor Adams: We would love to work with you. You've always produced some smart bills from even the red light cameras. And so our team would love to look at that bill and work with you on this.

Senator Gounardes: That's great. I was very glad to see in your State of the City address last week, I guess two weeks ago now, your focus on social media and the focus of this to be the health commissioner's advisory on this. It builds upon what the governor's put out.

I am working on two bills with Assemblymember Rozic around the addictive algorithms and the collection of data from minor users that I think fit very nicely with what your administration has put out.

Would love to have your team weigh in on those bills, would love to have your support for those bills because we agree this is the mental health crisis of our time and these companies are making billions by profiting off of the mental health and personal privacy of minors and they're getting away with it, scott clean.

And it's having a huge impact. And so in my last few moments here I want to think about social media in schools. What impacts are you seeing with the proliferation of social media, the impact on students and in our school buildings currently?

Mayor Adams: Well, we met with social media companies last week, the major companies, TikTok, Google, Meta and Instagram. And the commissioner, Dr. Vasan, did a forum on this and we're seeing a major impact of depression, suicidal thoughts, et cetera, and it's being sourced and being connected to social media.

Senator Gounardes: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember González-Rojas for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Assemblymember González-Rojas: I'm asking this as not just a legislator but as a parent. As a legislator, we fully funded foundation aid for our schools. But as a parent, I'm watching the impacts of the proposed $550 million cuts that we have.

Last year, I had my son's teacher cry to me that she was being excessed, and she took her talents to Long Island. So, we're losing our talented teachers and our students are struggling. And I ask this as a mom, how can we trust you? Why should we trust you with mayoral control?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, just as you are a mom, I'm a dad. And I know what we need to help our children. But not only am I a dad, the schools that you're talking about, I wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years and protected those babies that you're talking about.

And the decisions I'm making are outpacing the city and outpacing the state in education, dyslexia screening, educational opportunities, keeping our schools safe. And so if you have a lack of trust in the commitment that we've shown, I find that surprising.

Assemblymember González-Rojas: I know I'm experiencing this as a mom. My partner is on CEC 30. There's just a lot of concerns our parents have for children who are in school right now.

Moving on, are you aware that HRA is required to process public benefits within 30 days of application?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I am.

Assemblymember González-Rojas: We have food insecurity still on the rise. I see it in my district in Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Corona, Woodside. And yet, cash assistance application processing rates have declined nearly 41 percent and SNAP processing has not picked up to pace despite litigation. I'm worried about my neighbors going hungry. Can you speak to what you're doing to specifically address this? We asked this question last year, and we're still not seeing those rates increase to the level needed.

Mayor Adams: And Assemblywoman, and I agree with you, no family should go hungry. The SNAP backlog is now at what we consider functionally zero, less than 800 cases overdue. This is over a 65 percent reduction from where we were most of the summer. So, you asked the question last year, we took action. And the action that we're going to take and we're taking is taking an antiquated method that had people waiting too long, duplication of services, and we're doing this even with the manpower issue that we're facing.

So, because you asked that, we did not walk away here not fully understanding how serious this is, and we took appropriate action, and it's revealed in the numbers. And my team will give you a full report to show how much we've taken that action.

Assemblymember González-Rojas: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Senator Rawlison.

State Senator Rob Rolison: Thank you, Chair. Good to see you, Mr. Mayor and your team here this morning. A question on Floyd Bennett Field.

Mayor Adams: Yes, sir.

Senator Rolison: A federal installation. My understanding is, is that that is not being given to the City of New York by the federal government without cost. Is that correct?

Mayor Adams: That's correct.

Senator Rolison: And what is that approximately? I saw it before, but I was just...

Jiha: ...about $300 million dollars.

Mayor Adams: You say that number. I don't even want to say it…

[Crosstalk.]

Jiha: ...get back to him on the specific cost of the field.

Mayor Adams: Okay. We're going to get back to you on the specific cost of the field but it's not free and it's not cheap.

Senator Rolison: And I know it's not. And is that cost being borne essentially just by city funds or are there state funds mixed in with that, too, do you know?

Mayor Adams: The state is picking that up.

Senator Rolison: Okay. To go over to the retail theft issues that obviously the state is experiencing. In the governor's proposed budget, she put in approximately $40 million for various initiatives, 20 million go into the state police to create a task force. Is there money carved out in that that you know of Mr. Mayor that's going right to the NYPD?

Mayor Adams: I'm not sure if in our budget, do we know? No, it's not going directly to the NYPD. But we held… 

Jiha: We don't know yet.

Mayor Adams: We don't have that number yet of if it's going specifically to the NYPD. But we held a retail theft summit and came away with real ideas and we're seeing a real impact. And many of the retail thefts that we experienced are repeated offenders.

Senator Rolison: Right, because I see that in May of 2023, the chief of crime control strategies, Michael LiPetri...

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Rolison: He had spoke about the small number of say 250 individuals who had been arrested almost 2,500 times.

Mayor Adams: Exactly.

Senator Rolison: And like you,  I was on the job for 26 years and I know that there's got to be additional measures that can be taken to isolate these people so they're not continually doing it and causing this retail theft, which destabilizes the entire retail market. Some people don't even want to go into stores because they're constantly seeing it.

So, as someone that was on the job and had a career, what are your thoughts on what all needs to be done that we could be helpful in here in the state legislature?

Mayor Adams: That's a great question, and I appreciate your service at the same time. But many people will believe that retail theft is not hitting everyday communities. When you have a Ms. Jones that must take the bus to go pick up her medicine because the drugstore closed down that's in her community, that hits her directly. When you lock up the items in the store and you see our stores are closing, that hits our unemployment directly.

So, you have a small number of people that are repeated offenders and they are arrested and then they're back out on the street doing it again. And so we need to send a very clear and loud message that we're not going to allow those repeated offenders to continue.

And I don't think we have sent that message clear enough. We have really energized the owners of these stores to report it. We're doing our job as the police. We need other parts of the system to do its job as well.

Senator Rolison: I agree with you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Brown for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Eric Brown: I think I get five as the ranker.

Mayor Adams: It's all good. You have a good first name.

Assemblymember Thiele: No, Mr. Brown, you get three minutes. This is… Cities gets five, and then when we get to the local government you'll get five.

Assemblymember Brown: Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good morning.

Assemblymember Brown: We're honored to have the second best dressed guy in the state here before us. Today's a special day, not just because it's my birthday, it's also President Reagan's birthday. President Reagan had that famous quote, government's first duty is to protect the people, certainly not to run their lives.

Mr. Mayor, in 2021, you had said we should protect our immigrants, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration. Mayor Adams, why were the criminal migrants that assaulted NYPD officers near Times Square released without proper bail, and what measures are being taken to ensure they return to court, especially considering that all of them gave us the middle finger, fled out West, and thank God, they were just caught in Arizona.

Can you explain the criteria behind the decision to release these individuals, especially given their prior arrests and the severity of the charges they face. Given the criticism surrounding the release of these attackers, what changes or reforms are you considering to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers and of the public?

Have you petitioned the governor to use her power under Section 34 of the State Public Officers Law to get rid of DA Bragg? If not, why not?

Mayor Adams: The... That was... That was a mouthful.

Assemblymember Brown: Well, you know [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: First, as I stated, the assaults on our police officers that we all witnessed was not only an assault on an individual, it was an assault on our system of justice. And I want to be clear on that. And it was a despicable display of how you respond to a city that provided services.

And we cannot mix up the role of sanctuary cities with the actions of those. The overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers are doing the right thing, taking the next step on their journey.

I have no authority on what happens on the other arms, on this prosecutorial level or on the federal level. My job is to make sure our police officers do the apprehension, which they did, which they are doing and continue to do no matter who it is. You break the law, the New York City Police Department is going to carry out their function.

Assemblymember Brown: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Here's, but along the same lines, antisemitism is at an all‑time high, especially in New York City, in places of education and certainly in places of higher education. New York City Public School Chancellor David Banks has made several empty statements about zero tolerance, but continues to allow the antisemites to bully, harass, indoctrinate our children, and attack our teachers and children in New York City public schools.

Why haven't you taken control to ensure that those teaching these lies and spreading Jew hatred are stopped and removed from the classroom, and that teachers and students who are bullying and harming our Jewish children and teachers in our schools are held accountable?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that, as I shared with your colleague a little earlier, not only is my position strong on ending Islamophobia, antisemitism, LGBTQ violence, anti‑Sikh violence, our life record has showed that. And I think Chancellor Banks has made it clear not only in his presentation a few days ago, but in his actions, that he's not going to create or allow an environment to exist in the New York City public school system that is going to be against anyone that lives in our school system.

And the increases that we're seeing, particularly after October 7th, has been in not only antisemitism but even Islamophobia. You're seeing an increase in hate in New York City, we don't have any room for hate in our schools or in our streets.

Assemblymember Brown: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In fact, the Jewish population in the world is a fraction of a percent, so the percentage of antisemitism is extraordinarily greater than any other population. I appreciate that the chancellor has said these things in words, but really what action has he taken? Where is this action? What is it? Can you elaborate on that please?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think every day from his instructions in school to bringing together groups of what we're doing with Breaking Bread, Building Bonds bringing groups together. One of the biggest issues that we're seeing, Assemblyman Brown, we live in an isolated society, and our children don't grow up hating, our children learn hate from the society that we're in.

And that's part of what Senator Gounardes was talking about with what social media is doing, the misinformation you see on social media. It's unimaginable we have our young people believing that bin Laden was right for taking down our Trade Center. Something is wrong in our society when we're seeing hate being so pervasive and so available and so normalized, and that includes what we're seeing with antisemitism.

Assemblymember Brown:Thank you, Mr. Mayor. What I was saying was I would hope he would take action by removing the teachers that are spreading this hate. Again, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you, Assemblymember.

Senator Kreuger: Thank you very much. Next up is Senator Comrie.

State Senator Leroy Comrie: Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you, Senator? Good to see you.

Senator Comrie: Good to be seen and not looked at. I'll tell you about that later.

Three questions. Number one, the Public Service Advisory Commission for the MTA has come out with a plan that would save seniors and elderly and the handicapped a lot of money and clear up the fair system around the MTA so it would be clearer by, number one, expanding the Fair Fares program. I hope that we can expand that to 200 percent of the poverty level.

We can also do better advertisements so people are clear. People are unclear what they could say because there's no, not enough advertisement at the booths or anywhere to show people that there is a Fair Fares program or alternate programs.

So, I hope that your team will take a look at it and support that program with increased ridership, especially for people in the outer — better boroughs, as I like to say — you could save 10 to 12 hours a week in commute time if we expand that program. Hope you can support that.

I would also hope that you can support my bill to lower insurance rates for commuter vehicles. We have too many vehicles, most of the vehicles that are servicing the airports, servicing passengers, even mini vans, our ambulate service, they're all paying $60,000 or $80,000 a year in insurance rates.

We have a captive insurance program that's been adopted by this governor in other parts of the state, hope that you can support that also.

I do have two other questions. I want to thank you for supporting the SMOKEOUT bill that Assemblymember Rajkumar and I have down to make sure that we can eliminate the scourge of smoke shops that unfortunately were put in place by the actions of our previous governor.

And can you just explain to the public that I've gotten some concerns from people that too many people would be arrested and how that could be implemented in a safe manner.

Mayor Adams: Yes, thank you. And just dealing with the Fair Fares, which is, I think it's a great equalizer. We put $20 million into an existing $75 million annual program. And it helps a lot. It makes a huge difference.

And to respond to your bill for the Smoke Out, it's not going to be heavy‑handed. We are not going to go backwards. I fought for years in the police department to stop over‑aggressive policing around marijuana use, and I'm not going to see our police department go backwards.

We can find a balance of not allowing the abuse of the bill and allowing our children to being sold not only the cannabis but other illegal products inside these stores. We can find that balance.

Senator Comrie: Thank you, I got five seconds. I support mayoral accountability. I know you can't answer it now, but if you could just tell the public what actions you'll take to improve communications between parents and people that say that they can't access the system now.

Assemblymember Thiele: We are joined by Assemblymember Hyndman, and our next questioner is Assemblymember Darling for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Taylor Darling: Thank you. Hi, Mayor and team....

Mayor Adams: How are you doing?

Assemblymember Darling: Thank you for coming here and thank you always for your proactiveness and responsiveness.

I know it's a lot to govern the biggest, largest, most amazing city in the world, so I thank you for that. And as you know I represent Nassau County, and I always want to encourage our residents to come and enjoy the city because we know we need that for revenue streams and to support each other.

So, my question is, how do you plan to navigate potential differences in priorities and resources between Nassau County and New York City while working towards common goals for the betterment of the entire region?

Mayor Adams: For which county?

Assemblymember Darling: For Nassau County.

Mayor Adams: So… 

Assemblymember Darling: So, I'll say it again. How do you plan to navigate potential differences in priorities and resources between Nassau County and New York City while working towards common goals for the betterment of the entire region?

Mayor Adams: And I think that that question is an important one. And we saw a reflection of our regional approach by the World Cup.

Assemblymember Darling: Yep.

Mayor Adams: You know, to be able to partner with Governor Murphy to bring this major event to the global stage was important. And what I'm finding in other parts of the country, there's a regional plan.

Assemblymember Darling: Exactly.

Mayor Adams: We have the Regional Planning Authority, they're doing an amazing job, but I think we could do a better job with our region to smaller, more micro region, Nassau, Westchester, Long Island, and come up with real ways around public safety, because we're finding that people who are committing crimes are going throughout our entire region.

Assemblymember Darling: Exactly.

Mayor Adams: And also in economic development, tourism. We should be all part of the same team. And so I look forward to some ideas that you may have and partner with Andrew Kimball, who's in charge of our EDC, to see how we could attract businesses into our area.

Assemblymember Darling: I love that, and I love that we're on the same page. We know that we're going to be stronger together. So, I look forward to that partnership, and tag me in because I want to be a part of that. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Love it.

Senator Kreuger: Thank you. Senator Cleare.

State Senator Cordell Cleare: Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you doing, Senator?

Senator Cleare: I'm good. I have a couple of questions about housing. The 421‑a extension, how many projects does that represent and how many units is that? How many units of housing?

Mayor Adams: That we were able to build with 421-a? Or, you said… 

Senator Cleare: No, that are being impacted by the extension, the time needed for them to complete their projects. There was some projects that were waiting. And if we have a list of where they are it will be helpful.

Diane Savino, Senior Advisor to the Mayor: Senator Cleare, you're speaking about the vested… So the proposal in the governor's budget, there's an extension for 421-a for vested projects and then there's a replacement for the existing housing project.

So, the 421-a vested projects, it's a moving target. It's very hard to quantify the number of units because as we had Deputy Mayor Maria Torres‑Springer up last week, she addressed this, I think, very extensively with Senator Kavanaugh and Assemblywoman Rosenthal, thank you. I'm getting senile in my old age here.

It's hard to quantify the number of units. It's not an exact number because some of them, they were shovels that went into the ground and then the project, the program expired and they never moved forward. We will not know because people don't apply for the 421-a benefit until the end of their application, not at the beginning.

So it's not as if they apply for benefits, the program expired and we're waiting. So it's really difficult to answer that question.

Senator Cleare: Okay, so when you can, please send it to us as soon as you all know. Also, I just want this administration to really lift up senior housing. Housing is the number one concern that walks into my office, into my district. You know, we have overcrowded families, we have people wanting to get a home. apartment, and particularly our seniors who want senior housing, the waiting list is five, six, seven years to get into senior housing. And I just really want, as chair of the Aging Committee and also as representative of my district, to lift up the need for senior housing.

The migrant crisis has really impacted my district with a large number of African migrants into my community. We want to be compassionate and are compassionate and extend the hand, but this has really impacted our district. The quality of life issues, overcrowding, we have blocks where there's 400, 500 men on the street on a daily basis.

We have houses of worship who want to participate in the program that the city offers to sleep and have them in an adult daycare setting, but they can't meet the code that they are being asked to meet.

Can some of this money that the state is giving or money that the city has, how can we help those houses of worship provide a space for these people to be? And I want to thank your office, by the way, for their, really working with me on these issues around our new New Yorkers. [Inaudible.]

Senator Krueger: Sometimes a questioner takes all the time.

Mayor Adams: I'm easy. I'm low maintenance.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. I'd like to recognize the Assemblyman Ra so he can recognize some of his members who have come to the hearing.

Assemblymember Edward Ra: I want to recognize we've been joined by Mr. Brook-Krasny, Mr. Chang, and Mr. Novakhov. Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. And our next questioner is Assemblymember Seawright for three minutes.

Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright: Thank you, Chair Thiele and Krueger. And thank you Mr. Mayor and your team for coming up to Albany today. I want to thank you for your Women Forward New York City action plan with the ERA State Equality Amendment on the ballot this November. We appreciate all that you're doing.

But not a day goes by that I don't hear from a constituent about e‑bikes, so I appreciate your response to Senator Sepulveda on enforcement and education and partnering for registration.

But I'd like to focus my remarks today on the 5G towers that are being placed. I had sent a letter to you back in 2022 calling for a moratorium until a study could be done on the environmental and health aspects of the towers. And so why not stop this until we could have this study?

The community board in my district has passed a resolution against this. The community doesn't want it. In one instance, a tower was placed right outside the window of a baby nursery. And if you look at the study done in New Hampshire and other states, you know, there have called for a moratorium and for further distance away from homes and apartments for these towers to be installed.

Have you considered parks or other places away from where residents live to install the towers?

Mayor Adams: There's always a period of reflection when you deal with new technology in new ways. And just about everything you introduce, there are pros and cons. I cannot tell you how much this 5G and using these towers is helping so many places that don't have access to the technology that they need.

And I think there's a place where we can sit down and find a middle ground. But we want to continue to move forward. I've made it clear that I want to use technology to run our city more efficiently. And we don't want to do anything that's going to be harmful to communities and to families.

We have not witnessed any real danger in using these towers from our reports and from our studies. If you have something to counter that, we would love to look over it, because that's our goal. These structures, their 5G antenna towers are designed to bring free, high‑speed Internet access across the five boroughs.

We saw during Covid that high‑speed Internet is not a luxury, it's a necessity, and we need to make sure that we can get it across the five the entire city, and that's our goal and we want to do it in a safe way.

Assemblymember Seawright: Thank you. And as we focus on affordable housing, as the chair of the People with Disabilities Committee, I would just ask that we really focus on not only housing being affordable but it also being accessible for seniors and people with disabilities. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Well said.

Senator Krueger: And I don't think we've said it yet today, but if there are questions that you don't have time to answer or as you said you need to get back to us on, what we'd appreciate it if you send that information to both Ways and Means and Finance and we'll make sure all the members get the answer.

Mayor Adams: We'll make sure. Just as Chris talks about his favorite assemblyperson, he talks about you being his favorite senator.

Senator Krueger: Ooh. Yeah, like… You're cutting people's throats on your own team. Okay, where are we supposed to be? We are next at Senator Robert Jackson.

State Senator Robert Jackson: Thank you. Mayor Adams and your team, welcome to Albany.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Good to see you.

My question is, the first one, aid to municipalities. $715 million are given to municipalities around the State of New York, with the exception of New York City, and they can spend the money as they deem appropriate. Why aren't we getting it? And I ask you to support me when I raise it in the Democratic conference, but we need AIM money just like everybody else. So, what's your opinion on that real quick, if you don't mind?

Mayor Adams: I am with you, Senator. You know, I believe you are 100 percent correct, and I think it's admirable that you have taken on this fight and everyone needs to line up behind you. It's just fair that New York City should receive that as well.

Senator Jackson: Thank you. My next question, I attended a mayoral accountability or mayoral control hearing in Manhattan. About 60 people spoke, and it talked about, you know, that mayoral accountability control is not working, and they want to move to a transition over a period of time similar to other cities and in the United States, Chicago and other places like that.

So, and as you know, our governor's proposed that give you mayoral control for four years, and that's exceeding your term of office. And obviously, you're in an electoral process and that will happen, but in your current term, I'm not willing to give anyone more than their term— that's me as an individual— but I want you to know that the transition is very important.

Almost everyone who spoke at the hearing talked about a transition away from mayoral accountability, mayoral control. What's your quick opinion about that?

Mayor Adams: Well, we have almost a million students in our school system, hundreds of thousands of parents. And when we have hearings that on average have less than 100 people, just proportionally, the numbers just don't add up. And of course, you and I both know in this business of government, the most passionate about being against something is normally those who come out the most.

The reality is we have a school system that before mayoral control we were graduating around 50 percent of our students, we're at 80 percent. We are outpacing this state in reading and math. We are dealing with dyslexia, healthy food is...

Senator Jackson: Mayor Adams, I'm sorry., I just have one more question for you before the time is...

Mayor Adams: Yes. Okay, I just wanted to...

Senator Jackson: No, I heard you. But I want you to know the sentiment of the people who attended those hearings. And obviously, I'm sure that you're aware of it.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Senator Jackson: Class size reduction.

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm.

Senator Jackson: That's supposed to occur over the next several years.

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm.

Senator Jackson: I hope and expect — expect — it to be met. Let me just say that to you as someone that filed the lawsuit. I'm not hearing anything else but that.

Mayor Adams: But 100 percent we're going to follow the law, and we stated that over and over again, and we will do so.

Senator Jackson: Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. We are joined by Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn and our next questioner is Assemblymember Simon for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon: No, he sneaks up on you.

Mayor Adams: [Laughter.]

Assemblymember Simon: So, thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, for your testimony and for your hard work. I have a couple of questions for you. One is, and I just want to appreciate your work and your administration's work on dyslexia and literacy. And we need to really ensure full implementation. I'm curious how you're going to do that, because I'm cognizant of some of the blips. So, that's one question.

The other is, a real problem with enforcing of parking prohibitions with cops and various agencies parking in bike lanes, which raises the issue of, where are the bike lanes that are protected bike lanes that we need that will help limit that. It's a huge issue in my district.

Mayor Adams: And that's parking in the bike lanes?

Assemblymember Simon: Parking in bike lanes, other prohibited places. Often it's agency workers and police officers.

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm. Um‑hmm.

Assemblymember Simon: And you know, I have the jail and the central booking.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Assemblymember Simon: And then the other issue, of course, is truck traffic. You've been great on WIM, even, but the trucks are going through the neighborhoods. It's a huge problem, particularly in Cobble Hill. Too long, the trucks are too long and we're allowing them in, what are we doing about enforcement? 

Mayor Adams: And we are going to look at, are you talking about a particular area in the district that this is happening?

Assemblymember Simon: Well, it happens all over,  but it's particularly problematic on those streets that border the BQE.

Mayor Adams: Okay, um‑hmm. Um‑hmm. Yes, so why don't we bring in the local precinct commander and my head of traffic and find out specifically what is the issue over there. There's been a long problem over there through the BQE. They've tried many different things to try to free the flow of traffic, even closing certain areas during a particular time, [interest] going down by Red Hook.

We want to continue to figure it out. We have too many vehicles on the street, you know, and now with the last mile delivery services that adds to the problem. And you know, that is why we have to come up with a real way of dealing with more micro mobility and improving our transit system. But let us look at it and try to come up with the right solutions over there.

Assemblymember Simon: And the parking? The placard parking, the cops parking in bike lanes and what's happening with [inaudible] bike lanes?

Mayor Adams: And they shouldn't. The local integrity control officer at every precinct should be policing around his or her precinct. And if there's a problem there, I want to really encourage you to reach out to the commanding officer, meet with the local integrity control officer and Deputy Commissioner Stewart, who was in charge of Community Affairs so we could address that problem, because that shouldn't happen.

Assemblymember Simon: We've done that, and the issue for us often is the fact that because it's central booking, people come in from all over and park, even though they're not the local precincts. So, it's cops coming in from all over. So, it really needs to be a bigger, broader umbrella push from your office.

Mayor Adams: Right. Right. And let me look into it, because that's not an acceptable answer from him. 

Assemblymember Simon: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. I want to introduce Senator White, but I want to say it's Senator Rhoads’ time to question. Sorry, Senator White.

State Senator Steven Rhoads Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Hello, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Senator Rhoads: Thank you for your testimony today. I only get three more minutes. so I'm going to try and make it quick.

Mayor Adams: Oh, good.

Senator Rhoads: You've indicated before that the migrant crisis is something that will destroy the City of New York.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Rhoads: Yet you've indicated today that you have no plans to change the city's designation as a sanctuary city. Why is that?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think you, we're mixing the two. Migrants and asylums are paroled into the country. People who have sanctuary city are those who are immigrants and they're not turned over to ICE. So, there's two different. Sanctuary city and migrant and asylums are two different issues. They're paroled into the country legally. They're here legally.

Senator Rhoads: Well, given, my understanding is they're given legal status, right? The Biden administration is calling them asylum seekers, but asylum is supposed to be for those who are suffering political persecution in their home country. We've had eight and a half million border crossings in the last three years— eight and a half million people have been given legal status, 170,000 of which are winding up in the City of New York.

This isn't a problem, with all due respect, this isn't a problem with respect to our ability to handle migrants. The ultimate problem is the ability, is the Biden administration allowing these individuals access into the country and then walking away from the problem and leaving yourself as mayor of the City of New York, leaving the governor of Texas, leaving the mayor of Chicago to handle the resulting chaos.

Mayor Adams: And it is extremely a full‑time job being the mayor of the City of New York. I cannot solve a national crisis. The national government needs to solve that crisis, and I said it more than once. And that includes the White House and it includes the lawmakers that should come up with the answer so that cities like Chicago and Denver and New York are not taken the weight.

Senator Rhoads: Which leads me to my next question.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Rhoads: Why has there been, you're talking about a crisis that is going to cost the City of New York $4 billion dollars this year. The federal government has given you $157 million in support.

The same federal government is charging the state, my estimation is $300 million for the use of Floyd Bennett Field, federal property. Not only are they not giving it to you for free, they're actually charging us to be able to house some of those migrants.

Have you, mayor, done anything to coordinate with Governor Abbott in Texas who is dealing with a problem, probably 10 times the fold, the amount of the problem that we have here in the City of New York, or other mayors and governors in border states to force the federal government to take responsibility for their failed border policy?

Mayor Adams: Our coalition has grown. We have reached out and attempted to coordinate with Governor Abbott. We have been successful in coordinating with mayors across the city. Unfortunately, he does not seem to be willing to coordinate.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Tannousis for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Michael Tannousis: Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I want to direct your attention to the incident that occurred a few days ago where the migrants assaulted those police officers. The first question I have for you is, is there any possibility or potential of you speaking to the City Council to actually reverse the sanctuary city law that will not allow the city to cooperate with ICE, with the federal government, in detainer proceedings?

The second question I have for you is, there were 14 people involved in that incident, six of them were charged, only one of them the District Attorney of Manhattan requested bail for. We have a District Attorney in Manhattan that thinks he was elected to be a public defender, not a District Attorney.

Is there anything you can do on your end to ensure that these District Attorney's offices around, from the five boroughs, do what they're supposed to do? In this situation, those six people were charged with violent crimes. All of those crimes were bail eligible, and yet the district attorney only requested bail for one out of those six. Is there any way you can work with the district attorney's offices around the boroughs to ensure that the right thing is done by our community?

Mayor Adams: First, the cooperation with ICE. It is my strong belief that if a person commit a serious crime, felony, violent crime, the federal government should do its job and deport that individual if they're found guilty. And I will continue to say that.

With my five district attorneys throughout the entire city, we have worked collaboratively with them. They have been real partners in bringing down crime. They have a non mandate, and I think there's a reason they have a non mandate, that they determine how they're going to prosecute crimes and which crimes they're going to prosecute.

I think DA Braggs as well as the other DAs, Eric Gonzalez and others, they have been real partners in this pursuit of making our city safe, and I think they're going to continue to do that.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Senator Weik.

State Senator Alexis Weik: Good afternoon, mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Senator Weik: And thank you for joining us today. We're glad to have you here. I have three questions, so we'll try to squeeze them in. My first is, with congestion pricing being a target for New York City, the American Red Cross is located in Lower Manhattan, and congestion pricing threatens their very existence. What have you done to fight for some kind of exemption for them or repeal congestion pricing?

Mayor Adams: I think that when this decision came out of the state, I would have loved for the city to have more power and authority over this to make decisions, since these are our streets. We have very little. We had one appointment, and much of the decision is between the MTA and the federal government. We should have more power and authority, and I think we would have a different version.

I can continue to advocate and lift my voice to make sure that it is executed fairly, but we did not have the power when that  was handed down from the state.

Senator Weik: Well, please don't underestimate the value of your voice. I know that a lot of organizations are looking to you to make sure that you're advocating on their behalf.

I'm going to move on to my next question, which is the FDNY. FDNY hasn't had any new classes. They struggle to respond to fires safely because of bus lanes and bike lanes being occupied. What's your plan to assist or provide more for FDNY?

Mayor Adams: We just did that in our putting money back into the FDNY, bringing the fifth man in many of our sites. We just settled a contract, I think they had over 90 percent ratification. The more we make the job impressive and attractive, the more we could continue to recruit. And we have held them harmless as we continue to build the manpower within the...

Senator Weik: What can we do, I'm sorry, because of time.

Mayor Adams: Um‑hmm, no problem.

Senator Weik: What can we do to make it easier for them to respond to fires throughout the city?

Mayor Adams: Congestion pricing, [laughter] you know, unclog our streets.

Senator Weik: All right, we're going to agree to disagree on that one.

Mayor Adams: [Laughter.]

Senator Weik: [Laughter.] So, I'm going to move on to my last question, which of course is NYPD. There are more demands than ever. What are you doing to advocate for their safety and for their ability to do their job?

Mayor Adams: Well, as I like to remind people all the time, I know what that job is about and what it's like, and that's why I joined them the other night when they executed a warrant to deal with those...

Senator Weik: But what are you doing, mayor, to make sure that we're increasing whatever we can to give them as many tools as possible to be able to handle this, what seems like a daily migrant crisis on our streets that are threatening the safety of the people who live in New York City?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that when you really look at what we are doing, number one, the number one thing, the PBA, who represents them, called for is to give them a fair contract. We did that after almost eight years. And number two, I think that any lawmaker...

Senator Weik: Will you be working with the DA to try to make sure that we're able to remand these individuals and keep our officers and our streets safer?

Mayor Adams: The… [signal rings.]

Senator Weik: We tried. You'll have to get back to us with the rest of the answer.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assemblymember.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Hydeman for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman: Always good to see you,

Mayor Adams: Thank you, Assemblywoman. South Side.

Assemblymember Hyndman: I also want to give kudos to Chris and his responsiveness, especially when it came up for the City of Yes. Sometimes it seemed like the City of Yes has turned to a city of no for our community boards and civics, so I think the preliminary meeting we had with [Mr. Guadan] was good, but more outreach needs to be done, especially when it comes to the basements and ADUs, because as you know, Southeast Queens, we have so many homeowners who are really concerned about the quality of life as far as their blocks becoming crowded, more congestion.

And so when our colleagues talk about bike lanes and expansion, it's not that Southeast Queens doesn't want to be part of more green infrastructure, it's just that transportation in Southeast Queens has not improved. I know the Senator Comrie talked about the Fair Fares, and if we could really work collaboratively to get the commuter fares for the Long Island Railroad reduced, and that's something I think our communities could be, really worked towards.

Thank you also for having so many deputy mayors that are women. I think that's important for a lot of young women, especially the daughters I have in the public school system. I know the governor has put in four years for mayoral accountability. Not sure where I stand on that yet.

I will say that the Chancellor Banks has been very responsive to Southeast Queens when it comes to any problems or assistance that we need. I think, but I do believe that it should be taken out of the budget because the more and more policy that we put in the budget I think is detrimental. And I think mayoral control deserves to be really talked about with colleagues in New York City.

And for all of my colleagues, I really...who live outside the City of New York, I hope they will work with the county execs to help us with the migrant issue and not say, continue to say no. They sound very concerned, so speaking to their executives I'm sure would help us alleviate the problem. And that's all I have today.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for that. And I agree with you with Chancellor Banks. Many people talk about having parents have access. When you have a million students, you have to create ways of access. And no one has done it better than Chancellor Banks.

Chancellor Banks attends more meetings, more groups, focus groups, communicate with people. His level of accessibility is impressive. But we want to be clear: mayoral accountability is just that, I want to be held accountable. And if you water it down to the point that I'm not held accountable, then it's not mayoral accountability.

It's either mayoral accountability, or it's not mayoral accountability. And I'm hearing a lot of proposals that turns it into other folks' accountability. One person should be responsible for this, the school system.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Senator John Liu.

State Senator John Liu: Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Mayor, always good to see you and...

Mayor Adams: Always.

Senator Liu: ...I agree with and I applaud your strong statement that people come to New York City not because it's essential. sanctuary city, but because we are the best city in the world. So, thank you for that.

Thank you also for setting a tone with your administration in terms of responsiveness. Everyone on your team is responsive. Actually, Diane Savino responds even before I say or ask anything. [Laughter.]

So, I suppose I appreciate that.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Liu: Earlier on you had answered questions about the request for increasing the city's borrowing authority. Now, we haven't done that since the Great Recession in 2008 and 9/11 before that. Your predecessor asked for that, didn't really give a strong argument for that, so we didn't do it.

You cited a few things. things. I'm kind of happy to hear that you mentioned class sizes and that you pledged to comply with the law that requires reduction of class sizes in New York City, which again, addresses a decades old problem that was not your making. But you're the mayor now, and we have now fully funded Foundation Aid. So, we do need you to do that.

But no one has said anything about what the capital plan is to reduce class sizes. So, how much of that additional borrowing authority [what] you use to reduce class sizes, what kind of plan is there? And if the answer is you're putting together a plan, it's probably important to do it right away.

Mayor Adams: And Jacques will go over the details because every time he goes over it with me my head spins, you know, but let me say this. We execute the laws that are handed down to us. The state made a decision, and it's our obligation and responsibility to fulfill that decision, including figuring out how we're going to hire more teachers and start the whole recruitment process that's connected to that. But Jacques, can you go over...

Jiha: Yes. We currently have for the School Construction Authority about $17 billion for school construction in general.

Senator Liu: So, how many additional seats...

[Crosstalk]

Jiha: But we would probably give you, we'll give you a briefing on a specific, on how much of that those resources are basically dedicated specifically for class size. Okay, we'll review them those numbers with you, okay, and provide you the information that you need.

Senator Liu: So, you're looking for about another $10 billion of borrowing authority.

Jiha: We're looking for $19 billion because we...

Senator Liu: 10 in the first round.

Jiha: Not just for school, it's...

Senator Liu: So what would come first, the schools or the jails?

Jiha: We have… That's a good question.

Mayor Adams: I'm glad you asked that question.

Senator Liu: Say schools! Say schools! Quickly before I run out of time!

Jiha: We have three major...

Senator Liu: No answer. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Senator Krueger: I think we would like very much everything… 

Jiha: Sure. Definitely I will provide...

Senator Krueger ...to those numbers and on behalf of the finance committee, the entire capital proposal of two years bonding authority.

Jiha: Sure.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn for three minutes. minutes.

State Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: Thank you. Good to see you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Always good seeing you.

Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn: Good seeing you and the team. I want to first thank you and the whole team for just phenomenal work, responsive. And again, I want to thank you all for pushing and making sure that we pass these landmark MWBE bills. So, we're very, very grateful for pushing equity and empowerment in our community.

I also want to just commend you on your hard work on dealing with this unprecedented asylum seeker migrant issue. No other city is dealing with this burden that we are and you're doing as much as you can with the very little that we have.

My question to you today is about mayor control and mayor accountability. It says that the Center for American Progress has repeatedly showed that mayor led school districts improve school and student performance. Full stop. I want to know what has your administration done to continue this trend to improving student and school success?

But also, I want to know if mayor accountability is not renewed, what is the alternative? Is it going back to the school boards where separate but unequal was a big contributing fact to our segregation, our school segregation? Can you expand on that?

Mayor Adams: Thank you. And I think that's such an important question. When you do an analysis of what this chancellor has done, even down to New York City Reads and what he's doing that not only is the state embracing this, but even national leaders are now seeing what we're doing around dyslexia screening, around a better environment and how the equity issue is being addressed. Brownsville has been ignored for so many years, and what the resources we're putting into Brownsville turn around are their numbers.

The request is a simple one. Let us finish the job. Let us finish the job. 80 percent graduation rate, outpacing the state on reading and math, a safe environment. And so we can't play with this and go backwards. We have two public‑schools‑reared one mayor and one chancellor that really underscores what these children need.

Everything from teaching our children how to do self‑care with breathing in the morning, to better food so we don't feed the healthcare crisis through bad food. You're just seeing what you asked for.

There was a vision of mayor accountability, this is what you envisioned. You know, what you envisioned when you passed it is what you are getting right now. So, why take that away from the success that we're having? We can't go backwards. Too much is at stake. We can't go back to 50 percent graduation rates. We have 80 percent graduation rates, and we are moving even better.

Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn: Thank you.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. Senator Thomas O’Mara. Ranker.

State Senator Thomas O’Mara: Thank you, Chair Krueger. Good morning, Mayor. Thank you for being here.

Mayor Adams: Good to see you.

Senator O’Mara: I applaud your career from mayor to Senate, New York Police Department, captain,  I believe, right?

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator O’Mara: I started my law career as an assistant DA in Manhattan, so I commend you for that work. And what a sad state we're in, frankly, in this state and in the City of New York as it comes to enforcement of crime.

I applaud your efforts, but you seem to be the lone voice in the wilderness calling for sanity with regards to bail, with regards to calling for deporting these rogue packs of migrants that are committing crimes, not just the assault on the NYPD officers the other day, but now I'm reading today about a pack of moped riders going around snatching phones, snatching purses. dragging a woman down the street.

And I applaud your calls to at least ask for bail, but also that we should be considering and pursuing deportation of these criminals that are coming here illegally. Yes, maybe they're getting asylum once they get here, but they're crossing the border illegally.

And the crisis at the border is certainly your crisis right now, and it's our crisis as a result of that in New York State. Many states have sent National Guard troops to Texas, to the southern border to help enforce the border.

The Republican conferences of the state legislature have called on Governor Hochul to send New York National Guards to the border to help stem this crisis and at least slow down the flow of these illegal migrants coming into the country.

Do you support the governor sending National Guard from New York down to the border to help stem this tide?

Mayor Adams: No. I think the governor is using the guards correctly here. She's assisting us in certain levels of our operation. Many of the migrants and asylum seekers that are going through the border, they are leaving those areas and coming up to the city areas.

That's what I learned when I was down in El Paso. I commend the governor how she's using our guards here to deal with this crisis that we're facing.

Senator O’Mara: Well, if they weren't in El Paso to begin with,  they wouldn't be coming up here to New York and being our problem. We need to stop them from getting into El Paso and have a legal system to get them here. So, I certainly disagree with you on that because we're working on the problem after the fact and not stemming the problem.

I read recently there's been some improvements in crime on the subways, and I think that's a result of a significant surge in law enforcement activity that you were pushing. Now recently I've read there may be a somewhat of an uptick on subway crime. Can you talk a little bit about the surge that you put in place, and has that been retracted of all since then, and the cost of that surge of NYPD officers into the subways. What the cost to the city was, and I think the state, Governor Hochul said they were going to help share in that. What has been the cost of New York State for that surge to help the crime in subways?

Mayor Adams: I believe the exact amount was $40 million. We'll get the exact amount for you,

Senator O’Mara: State money?

Mayor Adams: Yes. It was such a crucial move with the Subway Safety Plan, because that was a time when we couldn't get passengers back on our subway system. And the governor stepped up, and you know, you guys and ladies stepped up and it was a game changer. We went from dismal ridership to over four million daily riders.

That's our economic engine for our city, and I cannot thank the state and the governor enough because it was a very challenging period of time. And we have to shift and make sure manpower is deployed correctly, because we can't lose our subway system.

Senator O’Mara: Has there been a decline in that surge now? Is that resulting in somewhat of an uptick in subway crime at this point?

Mayor Adams: Yes. There has been a decline in the manpower. We're doing some creative things, going to 12‑hour tours and really shifting our deployment where we're seeing the crime taking place. We have a real leader down there, Chief Kemper, and we're going to continue to push back any attempts to make our subway system a dangerous place.

Senator O’Mara: Thank you, mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you very much.

Senator Krueger: Assembly.

Assemblymember Thiele: Assemblymember Gallahan for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Jeffrey Gallahan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,  Mayor, for your testimony today and your staff.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Assemblymember Gallahan: My question pertains to the World Trade Center. This past July, the governor announced that the Public Authorities Council Board approved new construction of 1,200 units, housing units, at 5 World Trade Center.

According to the governor's press release, this will become the only housing site at the World Trade Center; and further, the units will be available to those with incomes between 40 percent and 120 percent of the area median income, which is about a little under $40,000 to a little under $119,000 for an individual living alone.

Also 20 percent of the units will be set aside for those who live or were working in lower Manhattan during 9/11 and in the aftermath, immediate aftermath. My question is, does your administration still support this new housing at the World Trade Center, and what role will your administration have in the construction in Tower 5?

Mayor Adams: We think what the governor's proposing is very important. We believe that is an area where we can have housing and we believe as part of our City of Yes plan we have to look at the entire city to build more. And whatever way we could partner with the governor we are willing to do so.

Assemblymember Gallahan: Thank you. I'm really concerned with the site and its neighbors. St. Nicholas Orthodox Church being one, the Liberty Park. And will this affect public access to these places? Will it be impacted or limited by this project?

Mayor Adams: I don't believe so. I believe you get a substantial number of visitors that are there each year now. There are several houses of worship in that area and I don't believe we'll have a negative impact on that at all.

Assemblymember Gallahan: And what is the exact timeline meant by immediate aftermath? I'm having a hard time understanding what immediate aftermath might be. And what is the range dates that you must have worked or lived in lower Manhattan to qualify for these 20 percent set aside units?

Mayor Adams: I think that's something the governor's office can give you the exact answer to that question.

Assemblymember Gallahan: And what is the definition of Lower Manhattan? Manhattan for the purposes of the 20 percent for the set aside units? Which streets and addresses are being considered lower Manhattan?

Mayor Adams: Again, I think that should come from the governor's office.

Assemblymember Gallahan: And my final question is, are you concerned that you'll find enough people who lived through 9/11 and where the attacks were and to live in this building that is across the street and overlooks ground zero, and will you be able to meet the 20 percent, do you believe you'll be able to meet that 20 percent and I believe that's probably connected to the aftermath question that I asked earlier, but what's your opinion of that?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I believe we'd be able to find enough people that live after 9/11, that lived in that area as well. I don't think there's going to be a problem accommodating that.

Assemblymember Gallahan: Thank you so much for [the] questions.

Mayor Adams: Thank you very much.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. I think I'm the last senator, so to speak. So, Mr. Mayor, many questions have been asked and I'm going to try not to repeat anything. Although I do want to just tie in two things you were already talking about.

One, the very first questioner from the Senate about the e‑bikes and the issues that we need to address, and I also want to continue to work with the city because I carry a number of those bills and I think that we are in the same place, but we need to get this done because it's just too dangerous out there for pedestrians.

But also, I know that the NYPD has recently started at least a model of being on the bridges and stopping the mopeds coming in without license plates. And I think that that's an incredibly effective model to address a huge problem, because the illegal mopeds without the license plates are also involved with crime. We also see them riding on sidewalks and in bike lanes.

And the governor has a number of proposals to fix this within her budget. So, I hope the city can endorse and support that effort as well because I think it fits in very well with what you're trying to do and what we need to do in densely crowded New York City.

Something that didn't get asked today, and I don't know that you will have an answer, I just want to know who to talk to. So, we have all these hospitals that are closing or being proposed to close. We even have hospitals that want to open. And yet there doesn't seem to be anyone in city government who's ever asked to play a role in this.

So, for example, in Manhattan, Mount Sinai Beth Israel has announced its closing at a ridiculously quick pace without permission from the state. And we're very concerned that there will be no hospital basically south of 34th Street to provide services to patients in Lower Manhattan.

And the fact is that a huge number of patients Beth Israel sees are actually coming across from Brooklyn because the data from Brooklyn is that about half of Manhattan hospital patients are from Brooklyn because they're not getting adequate hospital care in Brooklyn and yet the state is talking about radically shrinking or actually closing downstate in Brooklyn.

And then yet, Northwell wants to put a giant hospital on the Upper East Side where we have more beds per capita than anywhere in the country.

So I have frustrations with the state government about why we aren't asking the hard questions and having government play a role in regional hospital planning. So, I'm curious, does anyone ever ask the city? Does the city see that this also should be a responsibility?

I'm told, if Beth Israel closes, Bellevue estimates they'll need $150 million more per year to take care of the patients that will flow to them. That certainly is your issue, that if SUNY downstate closes in Brooklyn, there will be much larger demand at King's County. That's your issue.

So again, I'm just curious, like who should we be talking to, because I don't think the state is factoring in enough of the really big issues for the people of the City of New York.

Mayor Adams: And I think you raise a great point, because when you look at downstate, it's clearly is going to have an impact on Kings County. And when you look at the fact that we won't have a hospital south of 30 something street, it's going to impact, you know, the lower Manhattan.

And you're right, many residents from Brooklyn travel into Manhattan. I think it's a misnomer that you can't get quality care in Manhattan, because you do, you have some great hospitals in Brooklyn...a misnomer that you can't get good care in Brooklyn.

We've had conversations with the governor over one of the hospitals in the borough of Brooklyn that we're going to continue to be as supportive as possible. Our H + H system, I think that's a starting point with Dr. Katz to sit down, and as you stated, there needs to be a regional conversation because when we close one, how does it impact some of the other safety net hospitals and how does it impact our H + H system.

As you know, we don't have any impact on the... We don't have any, you know, decision‑making authority on closing a hospital or not, it's the state. But I think you're right. There should be a regional conversation about this.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. And so I should re‑coordinate with Dr. Katz?

Mayor Adams: Yes, Dr. Katz and Dr. Vasan, the commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Senator Krueger: Thank you. For the record...

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Krueger: Would you agree with me...

Mayor Adams: I always get scared when I hear that.

Senator Krueger: ...that the majority of asylees to New York, the majority of migrants to New York are not criminals and are not committing crimes.

Mayor Adams: Oh, without a doubt. And Senator, if we would allow them to work, it would be a game changer for our city— food service workers, nurses, lifeguards, anything you can imagine. We have an employee shortage in our city. If we will just allow them to work, we will have a different outcome in this entire crisis.

Senator Krueger: Agreed. Sometimes I sit up on this podium and I hear some of my colleagues and I just think, even if they don't live in New York City, like we all do, they have this illusion that every person who's come here from a different country has come here to commit crimes and create threats to the rest of us.

Mayor Adams: Far from true. Far from true.

Senator Krueger: That's far from true.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Senator Krueger: So, I wanted you on the record on that. Thank you.

We already started to talk about the issues of how, what you need the capital money for and I think we are going to have some separate briefing so I won't go into that.

But I did want to ask you, and it's a self‑serving question, because I carry a bill called the Climate Change Superfund Act which would require that the gas and oil companies who cause the most pollution and climate change damage have to pay the State of New York $3 billion a year for the next 25 years. That would be $75 billion.

And when I read your budget, I see that there's an estimate that New York City plans to spend $829 million on projects that are exclusively for adaptation and resilience and another $1.3 billion on projects that are partially for these climate purposes.

We know the federal government has told us we need to build a seawall at the cost of $52 billion, and we've all been having lots of discussions about who's responsible for paying, but you know the City of New York is going to end up responsible for paying a whole lot of that.

And if we don't deal with it, we won't have Lower Manhattan, even though one of my colleagues apparently has never been there so doesn't know where it is. But trust me, it's a great area and we don't want it under water.

So, would you agree that we need more money to do the work that you're ending up responsible for, but the oil and gas companies are responsible for creating the damage?

Mayor Adams: I agree. And I think that far too often, those who are responsible for some of the damages that's impacting our cities and our families have been left harmless and they should play a better role.

Senator Krueger: Just checking in my brief, two minutes left. I think we already talked about cannabis and all of our desire to close those illegal stores as fast as possible. And I have been coordinating with Senator Savino about additional language that we're working on to try to get this done, because I would love to see you be right and you're being able to close all the illegal shops in New York City in 30 days. That would be a pretty amazing accomplishment that every neighborhood cares about, so.

Mayor Adams: And your neighborhood is hit extremely hard...

Senator Krueger: Tell me about it.

Mayor Adams: ...about these illegal shops.

Senator Krueger: Yes. Yes, they, you know, I have Grand Central, Penn Station, all the areas that people come through. And look, people want the legal shops. That's the other thing I've learned. I thought that neighborhoods like mine might object.

It turns out— it's fascinating— that the highest users of the legal shops are over 60 years old. And I even learned that there's Kosher weed and a big demand for it.  I thought it was a vegetable. I didn't even know it had to be Kosher.

Senator Felder and I will discuss it later or perhaps one or the other assemblymembers here. I didn't really think we needed to make it Kosher, but apparently we do and there's huge demand. So, I want it legal. I want you to be able to get those illegal stores closed as fast as possible. And I'm going to cede back my 48 seconds. Thank you very much.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. We've been joined by Assemblymembers Jackson and Meeks. Our next questioner is Assemblymember Ra, Ways and Means Ranker, for five minutes.

State Assemblymember Edward Ra: Thank you. Mayor, thanks for being here today. I just wanted to get into a little bit of the issues with the city's budget that have been ongoing. Obviously, a lot has been talked about with the costs of asylum seekers that the city has borne. I think we all agree that the federal government needs to step in and provide more support with regard to this issue.

But I think there are other factors that play as well, and one of the things that I think we're dealing with both at the state level and I think at the city level is the out migration trends that have caused the loss in revenue over the last few years.

Any thoughts with or concerns with regard to taxpayers leaving New York City and what initiatives are perhaps there to help reverse this trend both in terms of residents but also less people coming into offices and shows and all of that and the impact that has on the city's revenue?

Mayor Adams: Yes. And when you're doing analysis who we're losing, we're losing working class people. The affordability is a real issue. And because of the partnership we've had with the state, we've been able to put money back in the pockets of everyday working class people.

And don't underestimate that partnership. It was through the state we were able to get the increase in earned income tax credit. That was a huge win. It was through the state that we were able to decrease the cost of childcare from $55 a week to less than $5 a week. That was a huge win.

When you look at the hundreds of thousands of people that live in NYCHA to have good affordable housing, we put it in our housing plan, but it was the state, our partnership that allowed us to get to NYCHA Land Trust. That was a huge win.

And so the reports are clear. Working class people are finding it extremely difficult to stay in the city, and many were leaving because of education. We expanded gifted and talented programs that many people are taking a second look at our educational system, and the school is getting better. So, we are doing those things, public safety, education, livability, that is going to slow down this hemorrhaging.

Assemblymember Ra: And I know that recently there was a management report that was released regarding staffing shortages that are slowing or hindering the work of several of the city agencies. How are you planning to address that given the budget crunch and the hiring freeze that is currently going on to make sure that those services are available to the residents?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Even prior to the hiring freeze, Assemblyman, we were dealing with a real staffing shortage. We had 14,000 jobs that were available that we couldn't fill, and it was for a number of reasons. Number one, civil servants were not paid a [comfortable] and a respectable salary. We were able to settle close to 95 percent of our union contracts, 100 percent of our uniform services contracts.

Now that we have this hiring freeze because we're dealing with a real economic strain and we don't want to put a pause on hiring. Our goal is to fill the jobs that we needed. Some of the areas we've left harmless, like our public safety areas and some of our social services areas. But there are other jobs we would like to fill if we could deal with this economic challenge that is really being fed by this asylum crisis that we're experiencing.

Assemblymember Ra: And then lastly, mayoral control. We have a proposal in this budget for a four‑year extension. One of the things I hear a lot about from our New York City members is just wanting increased transparency. So, as, you know, if this extension were to be passed in this budget, what is your plan to try to increase the transparency and accountability within the system so the parents know what's going on within the school system.

Mayor Adams: There is a high level of transparency from our PEPs through our PTAs. You know, we've been in this business a long time and I'm sure you go to many town halls, many meetings, there's never going to be enough feeling as though we want more input, we want more input.

If we didn't have mayoral accountability in place, we would have a real problem dealing with the asylum seeker crisis. Imagine going to every school board to figure out where children are going to go in the school? How are we going to deal with the class size issue without mayoral accountability in place?

You need to have an entity such as the mayor and the chancellor that can make this very tough and difficult decision. And I think, lastly, we are winning. 

Assemblymember Ra: Thank you, mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Hey, we will. Assemblymember Jackson for three minutes.

Assemblymember Jackson: Thank you, chair. Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you doing, Assemblywoman?

State Assemblymember Chantal Jackson: All is well.

All right. So, I'm sure my colleagues have talked you through the moon about this issue. 2.4 billion for migrants and asylum seekers. So, in the Bronx, of course, we have a lot of people who may be undocumented having housing issues. You can name all the issues that we have in the South Bronx.

When they see that we're putting 2.4 billion in the budget for migrants and asylum seekers, they think, well, what about me? What about my housing need? What about my health insurance need? What about my fast track to workforce? How do you wish we should respond to that as people who are responsible for taking care of the whole City of New York?

Mayor Adams: That's a legitimate question. And New Yorkers, they're angry, particularly in those communities that are underserved. They feel as though, you know, why are we being overlooked? And I think you should respond to them that the mayor is not overlooking you. The same services and more that we give to migrants and asylum seekers, we're given to long‑term New Yorkers.

The migrants and asylum seekers can't get FHEPS vouchers. You know, long‑term New Yorkers can get that. Migrants and asylum seekers at the HERRCs, they're taking showers outdoors, they're sleeping on cots. Their restroom facilities are outdoors.

And so there's this misbelief that the migrants and asylum seekers are getting more than what long‑term New Yorkers are getting, that's just not true. And job training, migrants and asylum seekers are not getting job training over long‑term New Yorkers; in fact, the federal government is not allowing them to work. And that's at the heart of the problem.

So, I think you should share with them that when you do an analysis of the delivery of services and resources to low income New Yorkers, this administration has put low‑income New Yorkers and struggling communities first.

Assemblymember Jackson: Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you. Assemblymember Meeks for three minutes.

State Assemblymember Demond Meeks: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: How are you? Good.

Assemblymember Meeks: [Inaudible]. Can you hear me now?

Mayor Adams: Yes, we can.

Assemblymember Meeks: Awesome. As it relates to the full funding of Foundation Aid, how has that affected your school district?

Mayor Adams: It has not. We have 100 percent of funding of financial, of FSF, 100 percent. It has not impacted at all. We've gone beyond the call of duty in doing so. And under the governor's budget, the FY25, we received $222 million more than we received in FY24.

But the real issue is that DOE would have received an additional $130 million more than that in FY25. So, we are concerned about some of the particular changes that are going to take place, and we want to make sure that we are being held whole in the process. You want to add anything to that?

Jiha: Yes. Like the mayor said, it would cost us about like $130 million.

Assemblymember Meeks: Okay. And I also want to commend you all on the major strides to go from a 50 percent graduation rate to over 80 percent, highly commendable. What would you say were like the major cultural changes as it relates to that?

Mayor Adams: Yes. And my first, I just want to go back. When I first stated it would not impact, I was thinking about when you was talking about fair student funding. That's what I was thinking about, fair student funding. So, I'm glad, Jacques, you caught that.

Jiha: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: I think it's a combination of things. Chancellor Banks has always made it clear that by the time our children reach 11th grade, they ask, why was I here? What was the purpose? And we've removed the purpose of education. And not every child is going to go to college, but they should be able to have a pathway to be a contributor to society.

And Chancellor Banks has really changed the game with his partnerships with outside entity tech companies, hospitals, facilities. And we have started to give children their purpose. And previous administrations as well, from Mayor Bloomberg to Mayor de Blasio. We're continuing to give that tradition of saying the responsibility lies with the mayor and the chancellor.

Prior to that, Assemblyman, no one knew who to point it to. There was a group of boards, there was a lot of mismanagement of funds, there was a lot of issues around that. And now people are able to point, this is your responsibility, the buck stops with you and you must produce the product and be able to answer the questions that come with that.

Assemblymember Meeks: Thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Okay. Our last questioner is...

Mayor Adams: Oh, no, please!

Assemblymember Thiele: ...it is City's Chair Braunstein for his second round for three minutes.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Thank you, Fred.

Just a couple more questions. The Transitional Finance Authority's outstanding debt, the city Comptroller reports that it has $48 billion in outstanding debt for the fourth quarter of 2024. The cap is currently 13.5 billion. So, what do you attribute that extra 35 billion of outstanding debt to?

Jiha: This is...

Assemblymember Braunstein: If you could speak in the mic.

Jiha: Yes. This is debt that is outside of that $13 and a half billion.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Well...

Jiha: There's a cap of 13 and a half billion dollars, okay, that it doesn't count toward the debt limit, and anything above that counts toward the debt limit. You follow what I'm saying to you?

Assemblymember Braunstein: No.

Jiha: Okay. We have a debt limit.

Assemblymember Braunstein: 13.5 billion.

Jiha: Okay. So, now there is a total debt limit for the city that is basically based on the values of properties in New York City, in general, okay? There's, so when the city reached the debt limit back in the '90s, so the transition of finance CFA to basically issue more debt.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay, okay.

Jiha: The state gave us authority up to 13 and a half billion dollars. Okay? But at some point, it gets to a point where the city becomes almost, it was basically, easy for the city, easier for the city to show a TFA instead of [inaudible] debt. So, the city issued TFA debt that fall outside.

Assemblymember Braunstein: But that's still under the city's other general...

Jiha: General debt limit.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay.

Jiha: Okay?

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay.

The other question I have is I know that you're facing some challenging financial decisions because the federal stimulus money is drying up, particularly when it comes to your education budget. You know, 3K program, summer programs. How much stimulus funding is drying up this year from last year?

Jiha: It's about $900 million.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Year to year, 900 million?

Jiha: Yes.

Assemblymember Braunstein: That's not a few years out, that's just in one year. So, last year you got 900 million more from the federal government than you're getting this year for education or for everything?

Jiha: Educational programs, about 700, but overall it's about $900 million.

Assemblymember Braunstein: So, but for the education piece...

Jiha: 700.

Assemblymember Braunstein: ...like we're talking about, you were using for 3K...

Jiha: 3K.

Assemblymember Braunstein: ...Summer Rising.

Jiha: Summer Rising, yep.

Assemblymember Braunstein: 700 million from one year to the next.

Jiha: Yep. Yep.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay.

Mayor Adams: Huge hit, a huge hit. You know, permanent programs with temporary dollars.

Assemblymember Braunstein: Yes. I mean, ideally, we would have, if we knew it was coming, we would have tried to plan for it. But I understand that it's a lot of money. 

Jiha: That was the plan, but because of the migrant crisis, we have to pivot. Okay? That was a plan all along, transitional financing to basically take care of this problem. 

Assemblymember Braunstein: Okay, thank you.

Assemblymember Thiele: Thank you very much, and Mr. Mayor, thank you for your testimony...

Mayor Adams: Thank you. 

Assemblymember Thiele: ...and for your responses to the legislature's questions today. We look forward to working with you in the coming weeks as we craft a budget for the city and for all of the State of New York. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you very much