Mayor Adams to fight for control of schools, migrant funding and affordable housing on ‘Tin Cup Day’
Mayor Eric Adams will head up the Hudson on Tuesday to make his case for renewed mayoral control of Big Apple schools, more migrant funding and more affordable housing — but has notably abandoned his push to combat retail theft on the state level.
Hizzoner will make his annual appearance at the budget hearing in Albany, dubbed “Tin Cup Day,” along with other mayors across the state as they pitch for funds to be diverted to their local needs.
This year, Adams may be spared the level of begging needed in prior pitches to state lawmakers with Gov. Kathy Hochul already making the case for many of his big-ticket items in her State of the State, including $2.4 billion earmarked for the migrant crisis and incentives to build more housing.
The mayor’s toughest fight, however, will be convincing the rest of the Albany Democrats to extend mayoral control over the nation’s largest public school system for the standard four more years — as the city grapples with reduced class-size requirements and a surge of migrant kids filling up classrooms.
The power over city schools is set to lapse in June after a two-year extension was granted back in 2022 despite Gov. Hochul pushing for four more years of control. Adams at the time warned that the whittled-down extension would “harm” Big Apple students.
Albany lawmakers were hesitant about how the Adams administration would handle reduced class sizes, which places a 20-student max cap on kindergarten through third-grade classes, 23 for fourth through eighth grade, and 25 for those in high school.
City Hall reps only spoke in broad terms Monday when announcing Adams’ expected efforts in the capital and didn’t respond to follow-up questions about the administration’s goals.
Hizzoner, however, brushed off criticisms about his tumultuous relationship with Albany, bragging to reporters about how the city gets “just about everything we want”.
“I don’t know how there’s an analysis that we are unable to deliver when we go to Albany when it’s been just the opposite,” he said.
The mayor and the governor have found a renewed united front of late as they deal with the crippling cost of caring for the more than 170,000 migrants that have poured into New York since the spring of 2022.
Adams will also be pushing his plan to build 500,000 new homes and apartments across the five boroughs through property tax breaks for developers and cutting red tape.
And while he has an ally in Hochul, who included a six-year renewal of the 421-a program in her budget proposal, the governor’s efforts also fell flat last year.
421-a offers developers property tax breaks if they set aside certain percentages of the units in new buildings for rent stabilization.
Hochul also has called for replacing the program in the long run but hasn’t laid out specifics.
During her State of the State address last month, the governor specifically called out Adams when introducing her plan to build 800,000 new homes.
“I remember last year, a number of the loudest voices in opposition said they believed in local control. Okay, let’s put that to the test — the City of New York, which is a local government, wants to build 500,000 more homes,” she said. “I agree! Let them build!”
Meanwhile, a large lobbying failure for the Adams administration last year was a proposed change to the criminal justice statutes, making it so repeat thieves could be charged with felony grand larceny charges, including the eligibility for judges to set bail.
When asked about the notable absence from the lobbying agenda this year, Adams touted what he considers a success in driving down retail theft over the last year due to his retail theft summit and subsequent report.
“We are trending in the right direction related to retail thefts,” said NYPD Deputy Chief Frank Giordano.
Cases of retail theft decreased roughly 7% last year, with 59,000 incidents reported in 2023 compared to 63,000 in 2022, according to NYPD data.
Still, that’s a far cry from about 38,000 incidents in 2019.
