Five things to know about de Blasio’s 2019 executive budget

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced an $89 billion executive budget for fiscal year 2019 on Thursday afternoon, crediting the city’s strong tax base and thriving economy for its growth.

De Blasio recalled what’s become the calling card of his second-term, “making New York City the safest big city in America,” calling the budget an effort to bring “that simple slogan to life,” with fairness animating the city’s spending decisions.

The executive budget is, in part, a response to the state budget enacted April 1. The city must pass a budget before the new fiscal year begins July 1.

Here are five things to know about the proposed spending plan.

Keeps on rising

The mayor’s $89 billion proposed budget is $1.6 billion higher that what the city expects to spend by the end of the current fiscal year. The city is obligated to have a balanced budget, so all increases in the budget are a result of rising revenues – and the economy has been good to the mayor. In a press conference on Thursday, de Blasio bragged about the addition of 428,000 new city government jobs in the past four years (a good number of them within his own administration), and he also noted that the city’s population has topped 8.6 million for the first time in history – which has been good for the city’s coffers. Stock market gains also added to a increase in property tax receipts, as did – despite de Blasio’s ardent protests – changes to federal tax law.

Cuomo’s greatest hits

“We had a bad year in Albany,” de Blasio said. “In fact, the worst year since 2011.” The mayor asserted that the state budget cut $530 million towards the city, and that a quarter of the city’s new spending (between the preliminary budget and this executive budget) would be compensation for those cuts from Albany. The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit budget watchdog, predicted the state budget would cost the city even more, up to nearly $1 billion. Some of the biggest hits to the city budget include $254 million in the expense budget alone for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Subway Action Plan and $140 million less in school aid than the city had predicted.

De Blasio also complained about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that declared a state of emergency in the city’s public housing – whose fiscal effects weren’t included in the mayor’s proposed budget. That, he said, “could have many unforeseen consequences for next year’s budget. … That is an X-factor in this budget dynamic. We do not know the full ramifications of that executive order because nobody knows the full ramification of that executive order.”

… and Trump’s

Echoing comments at his preliminary budget briefing in February, de Blasio said President Donald Trump’s negative fiscal impact on the city has been much less than expected. “That being said … we can only expect the unexpected,” de Blasio added, when “the federal context shifts not weekly, not daily, but hourly these days.”

But de Blasio expected the economy of the city – and the country – to stay strong. Out of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, the Comptroller’s office and the City Council’s budget division, “No one sees storm clouds on the horizon … everyone is aligned,” de Blasio said. “When (current economic growth) ends, we will have serious consequences in the city. We don’t see it now.”

Did the council get what it wanted?

Under first-year New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, the city’s legislative body asked de Blasio to consider adding more school funding, a property tax rebate for certain homeowners, and to fund half-priced MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers through a program known as Fair Fares. While the mayor added an extra $125 million to school funding, he declined to include the property tax rebate or Fair Fares in the executive budget. But hope remains in the City Council ahead of the July 1 budget deadline. “Now we’re going to go into negotiation,” de Blasio said Thursday. “We’ve got about six to eight weeks ahead, and we will talk about those.”

What else is new?

There weren’t any new big ticket initiatives in the executive budget. The mayor did announce a $102 million commitment towards installing some 3,000 physical security barriers that safety advocates called for after drivers attacked pedestrians in Times Square and on a Hudson River bike path last year. That’s double the cost the mayor announced back in January. The mayor also announced another $41 million towards digital security, to keep city infrastructure safe from cyberattacks.

One big budget item that wasn’t included? The Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar, or BQX. The project has languished since the mayor announced it in 2016. Asked Thursday about the status of the project, de Blasio said he’s excited, and teased more news to come “soon.”

“We’re going to have a big update for you,” he said, “we’re just not including it in this update right now.”