Add The New York Post on Google Clueless City Council members were blindsided by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s 11th-hour move to ax nearly 600 promised new NYPD cops from the city’s behemoth budget – leaving them bracing for more surprises, sources revealed.
Mamdani sprung the cut on City Council Speaker Julie Menin late Monday right after they hashed out a backroom deal for the eventual $125.8 billion budget, insiders told The Post.
The ambushed lawmakers had taken Mamdani at his word weeks ago that he’d hire 580 more officers — even though that pledge angered the democratic socialist’s lefty allies because it broke a campaign promise to freeze the NYPD’s headcount at 35,000 cops.
“We were completely blindsided when the mayor sucker-punched us with this reversal after a deal was done,” said David Carr (R-Staten Island), the City Council’s minority leader.
“When an administration publicly announces that it is hiring 580 police officers, you’re supposed to be able to take them at their word. Not once from the announcement was there any sense that this needed expansion of the uniform headcount could be on the chopping block.”
The far-left-appeasing move also put the City Council speaker in a bind because if she objected, it would have derailed a budget deal as the city was already in danger of blowing past a Wednesday deadline, insiders said.
“It was completely deliberate,” one insider said. “He did it at the last minute so the council couldn’t do anything.”
Council members ultimately approved the record-breaking budget 45-6 late Tuesday without fully knowing what it contained, owing to the last-minute, ramshackle scramble to pull it together, insiders said.
The council members — as well as New Yorkers in general — still didn’t fully know a day later what curveballs the adopted budget contained, as documents detailing the spending plan’s specifics still hadn’t been released.
The wait prompted not-so-quiet grumbling from lawmakers such as Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens), who called it disgraceful that Mamdani left the city in the dark on the budget, despite his campaign pledge to deliver a transparent government.
“If the mayor is deceptive enough to pull the police from the budget at the last minute, who knows what he is hoping to slip into the final budget,” she said.
“The rug pull with the NYPD is the exact kind of treachery I have come to expect from the administration. They are all smiles up front, but behind the scenes they are working to destroy this city in whatever ways they can.”
The fraught budget deal nearly imploded as it came down to the wire because of Mamdani flip-flopping on a campaign promise to fund the expansion of a housing voucher program.
Hizzoner and Menin ultimately struck a deal on vouchers, albeit one that left many progressives and moderates unhappy.
But those gripes were arguably overshadowed by Mamdani’s maneuver to walk back the plan to add more cops — especially as the stretched-thin force faces a massive summer workload, with officers working 12-hour shifts this week due to World Cup tourism and the upcoming Independence Day holiday.
The NYPD’s staffing crunch goes back to 2020, when retirements started to outpace new recruits.
The added Finest that Mamdani originally proposed within his executive budget were meant to help ease the demand for cops on the streets so they could catch up on trainings for de-escalation and mental health response, according to insiders.
One source called the cut “incredibly ironic,” given the added officers weren’t meant to boost the force but rather provide some relief to overworked street cops – a priority of Mamdani and his progressive allies.
The cops were “for literally everything they care about,” the source said.
Menin said she disagreed with the move, as well as Mamdani’s decision to hold off adding “fifth man” to FDNY fire trucks.
“We need to be adding police officers,” Menin said, noting the city has fewer cops than on 9/11.
Some lawmakers and other insiders were peeved the speaker didn’t put up more of a fight behind closed doors after Mamdani’s surprise cut.
“She had the chance to show she was pro-cop and tell the mayor no, and she blew it,” said a source familiar with the budget negotiations.
“She never told her members till it was too late, and is now trying to pretend she didn’t agree.”
An NYPD spokesperson responded to the cut by noting Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s experience dealing with tight budgets and resources.
“Commissioner Tisch has led three city agencies over the course of her career, and few public servants have a stronger record of finding efficiencies, modernizing operations, and delivering results for New Yorkers even under the most difficult budget conditions,” the spokesperson said.
“For now, the department is able to police effectively with the budgeted headcount we have, driving crime down month after month. That headcount and our hiring plan gives us the flexibility we need to maintain that balance over the next fiscal year.”
Mamdani didn’t respond to questions about the cut when confronted by a Post reporter after a Fourth of July safety briefing,
He instead smiled and nonchalantly walked inside City Hall.
— Additional reporting by Haley Brown
