Cut to the chase: City Hall must back up the case for budget cuts

That the successive budget cuts ordered by the Adams administration will impact services for a wide swath of New Yorkers is hardly up for dispute. It is up to the Adams administration to make the case that they are both fully necessary and being implemented appropriately.

It’s one thing to hear about budget cuts abstractly, the sort of thing New Yorkers might even reflexively support if they have a tendency towards fiscal caution. Yet it’s a very different one to have it made real, to actually experience specific services dissipate.

Now, we know that the cuts threaten to significantly hamper the Department of Education’s efforts to implement court-ordered reforms aimed at ensuring that children with disabilities receive the special supports and services they require, after years of massive delays and outright disregard. The lack of these services can’t simply be made up later; extensive research makes clear that a failure to provide children with services like speech and occupational therapy can have lifelong impact, and compound educational inequities.

We know that they threaten the investigative activities of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, one of the only real avenues for regular New Yorkers to achieve a measure of direct oversight and accountability for the NYPD. Among the types of investigations that the body is expected to curtail are those of police officers allegedly making false statements, seizing property and refusing to provide a name and badge number. In other words, it will be easier for police officers to avoid scrutiny and consequences for violations of the public’s trust.

The cuts threaten community-focused composting initiatives around the city, even as the Adams administration strives to expand residential composting. They threaten library services and our strapped public parks and everything else that we have local government tasked with even as the cost of living drives more middle-class New Yorkers out.

They may well impact the city’s ability to enforce against housing law violations, leaving more New Yorkers without heat or with pests or other issues. In a report published last week, the Independent Budget Office estimated that some 30% of cuts would directly impact programs that New Yorkers interact with regularly.

In short, this will make life worse for many New Yorkers. Does this fact alone mean that the city should simply spend money it doesn’t have, indefinitely? Certainly not, and part of the job of a leader is making agonizing decisions to ensure the long-term and overall health of the city, even if it means some short-term pain. Yet the cuts come against the backdrop of the City Council’s questions on the city’s very expensive contracts for migrant services, for example.

In addition to analyzing the impact of the cuts, the IBO’s own budget projections estimate a lower cost for migrant services than the administration — not by a few pennies, but billions of dollars. The agency has been making these granular projections for decades, throughout which it’s won a hard-earned reputation for nonpartisan and basically apolitical analysis that’s highly accurate.

It’s undeniable that the migrant spending is significant and that the federal government should step up with the funding. But the case for the cuts needs to be ironclad before New Yorkers see their services disappear. Every cutback should be shown to be necessary.