Mayor Eric Adams Thursday unveiled his $114.5 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“Our administration’s 2026 fiscal year budget reflects our priorities: maintaining strong fiscal responsibility so that we can protect critical programs, fund generational housing, tackle homelessness and serious mental health, invest in our children’s education and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers," he said.

This year’s budget includes investments in housing, rental assistance vouchers known as CityFHEPS and mental health. 

What You Need To Know

  • Mayor Eric Adams' budget for the upcoming fiscal year focuses on housing, homelessness and mental illness 

  • City officials said due to savings and a strong economic outlook, the city was able to fund critical programs this year

  • Council members say a drop in 3-k funding is a concern for them and they plan to fight for it when negotiations begin later this year 

This year’s budget includes investments in housing, rental assistance vouchers known as CityFHEPS and mental health. 

This budget is $2 billion more than last year despite savings made by the administration, including on migrant costs.

Those savings partially came after the Adams administration updated their overblown financial spending on new arrivals.  

“It’s a good budgeting fall for that much money. If you budget for the $4 million and then you end up spending $3 billion, you’re saving a billion dollars. So it was in our budget to begin with,” Jacques Jiha, the director of the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, said.

Adams claimed that due to an unexpected rise in New Yorkers without homes, the city is having to budget for increased housing costs.  

“We are seeing an increase in the shelter population, not migrant and asylum seekers, but other parts of the country. There’s a substantial number of people from other parts of the country coming from New York City now. We don’t know if it's the disasters in their areas or if there was so much conversation in the universe on the right to shelter that everyone is coming to New York,” Adams said.

“I’ve never heard of this before. And to be real we are worried that this is going to be the next excuse of why we need to rein in things in the budget,” City Councilman Justin Brannan said.

Brannan, who chairs the finance committee and is running for city comptroller, said he’s optimistic about this year’s budget negotiation process. 

“It’s nice when we can walk into a room and agree how much money is there. That helps when we can agree that two plus two equals four. This is what you [have] got to work with. The past three years we haven’t had that luxury," he said. “You’re seeing that actually their forecast is more optimistic than ours. Happy days are here again.” 

However, one area of concern for the Council following the release of Adams’ preliminary budget is a decrease in early childhood funding. 

"Seeing that this preliminary budget is silent on investing in 3-k is just crazy. I don't know if they forgot to put it in the document," Brannan said.

3-k funding compared to last year was decreased by $112 million in the preliminary budget, which represents about 38,000 seats.

Officials said that is due to the sun-setting of stimulus dollars, but added that could change after negotiations with the Council later this year.