Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog, said Hochul will have to face the challenge of “degraded public trust and accountability in State government.”

"It’s clear this funding model is not sustainable in the long run, particularly if they’re going to be adding routes," said Sean Campion, a senior research associate with the Citizens Budget Commission who has studied the ferries. "At some point there needs to be some action to stabilize the system, either raising fares or coming up with additional subsidy to cover that gap."

But transportation experts have warned that the heavy subsidies required to keep prices down on the boats is not tenable, particularly as the system continues to expand. In 2019, the ferries received a subsidy of more than $10 per ride, or roughly tenfold more than that of the NYC Transit System.
"It’s clear this funding model is not sustainable in the long run, particularly if they’re going to be adding routes," said Sean Campion, a senior research associate with the Citizens Budget Commission who has studied the ferries. "At some point there needs to be some action to stabilize the system, either raising fares or coming up with additional subsidy to cover that gap."

As Politico New York reported on Friday, Hochul’s team has begun interviewing Cuomo staffers to determine who will remain in her administration. The New York Post reported that Hochul’s chief of staff, Jeff Lewis, has reached out to executive chamber employees, asking if they wish to remain with the administration, saying that individual meetings would be happening soon, and indicating that most would be asked to stay on.

Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog, said Hochul will have to face the challenge of “degraded public trust and accountability in State government.”
“There are many gaps already, but completing required financial reporting and providing transparent data on the uses of extraordinary federal funds are priorities,” he said in an email.
Orecki also noted that Hochul will soon have to take stock of state finances. If revenues continue to be strong, “The most prudent responses would be to save excess revenues for a rainy day or to walk back recent tax increases. At the moment, the State is nearly three weeks late in releasing its quarterly update to the financial plan, and that should be released expeditiously to clarify the State's current fiscal condition and uses of extraordinary federal funds.”

What matters more than when the budget is finalized is what’s in it. In Cuomo’s first few years, he honored his promise to hold spending and taxes down. Over time, the governor embraced more and more accounting sleight of hand to shift spending across years or off-budget while maintaining the appearance of fiscal discipline. Claims of sticking to the 2% cap became roughly as meaningful as McDonald’s offering a low-calorie supersized meal: The Citizens Budget Commission calculates that pre-pandemic, annual spending growth under Cuomo averaged 3.7%. And after the post-COVID windfall from Washington, coupled with major, risky and economically unnecessary tax increases on the wealthy to which Cuomo capitulated, it’s ever upward.

“I don't think it's appropriate to take the view that we're going back to normal and the gaps will solve themselves,” Stringer said in a July appearance on What's The [Data] Point?, the podcast produced by Gotham Gazette and Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog.

“I think the mayor and the Council missed a real opportunity to start to think about what a post-pandemic New York will look like through the lens of our tax revenues,” he added.

Stringer noted that the current reserves are about 10.8% of city spending, and has for years called for increasing reserves to between 12-18%, or $9 to $13 billion a year. And he worried that the new $500 million rainy day fund does not have any safeguards. “There's no penalty for early withdrawal and I worry that when next year's budget or the next budget comes, it's going to be easy to tap that money for pork barrel spending rather than to hold it for real emergencies,” he said.

Ana Champeny, Citizens Budget Commission director of city studies, expressed concern that one-time federal stimulus funds are going towards recurring spending, “which we see as putting sort-of a really big fiscal cliff in the future for the city.”

“Our concern is that the gap and the challenge that the next administration is going to face is bigger than what's shown on paper,” she said.

CBC has urged the city to continue depositing funds in reserves each year to create an adequate cushion for potential future crises. “The amount of reserves that the city will need for the next crisis is still far greater than what they have,” Champeny said, noting that the administration increased new spending on city agencies by $1.5 billion and spent $516 million on City Council initiatives in the current budget.

“The longer we delay congestion pricing, we’re denying New Yorkers the benefits that were promised with congestion pricing,” said Andrew Rein, the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a government watchdog group that recently released congestion pricing recommendations.

The projected congestion pricing revenue would be used to secure $15 billion in bonds for transit projects and is the largest source of funding for the M.T.A.’s $51 billion capital plan, which includes modernization of subway signals, upgrading of stations and purchase of new train cars and buses.

As Cuomo Exits, Will Congestion Pricing Still Come to New York City?

When he ran for governor in 2010, Cuomo opposed extending the tax increase. But after inheriting it when he came into office in 2011, Cuomo struck a deal with Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats that December to institute a top personal income tax rate of 8.82% for filers earning at least $1 million if single and $2 million if married. There were also tax cuts for those in brackets under $300,000. The deal came as the governor and lawmakers faced budget strains and pressure from the Occupy Wall Street movement.
While Cuomo at times said he wanted to allow the millionaires' tax to expire, the state repeatedly extended it with only slight changes under his tenure, said Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit public policy research group. Cuomo also pursued tax rate cuts for more middle-income earners during his tenure, including personal income tax cuts in 2018.

The M.T.A. has lost about half of its riders since the pandemic started. The subways are carrying about 2.5 million riders each weekday, down from more than 5.5 million in 2019. On the commuter railroads — the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North — ridership is down about 60 percent. A fare increase scheduled for this fall was postponed in hopes of luring back more riders.



The drop in passengers and an exodus of workers led the M.T.A. to make service cuts, some of which it has not yet restored. A gusher of emergency federal aid — $14.5 billion in all — has bolstered the authority against a huge operating deficit. But it could face a budget gap as soon as 2025, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog.

A New York public policy group has backed a property tax coalition's push for the state's highest court to consider a case that claims New York City's property tax system unconstitutionally favors wealthy white residents.

In an amicus brief filed Monday, the Citizens Budget Commission backed a request from Tax Equity Now New York for the state Court of Appeals to consider its challenge to New York City's property tax system, which the city is authorized to administer through state law. TENNY on Monday asked the state Appellate Division, First Department, to allow it to take the case to the Court of Appeals after the midlevel court tossed the challenge last year.

Eric Adams is gearing up to face four public-policy challenges that would make even the most seasoned city administrator pause and take stock.



A pandemic-induced economic contraction and worries about crime could stymie the presumptive next mayor’s agenda, while a billion-dollar budget deficit might get even worse when assessed property values drop in the depleted commercial real estate sector.