Mayor Zohran Mamdani is packing City Hall with dozens of new top aides to shepherd along his pet projects — despite the hipster socialist crying poverty with a whopping budget gap.
Hizzoner wants to hire at least 79 more staffers to the total tune of $10 million, including an enforcer of “economic justice,” a pair of World Cup managers and a special adviser to the advocacy community, according to a Post review of administration job listings this month.
The economic “enforcer’’ post comes with a salary of up to $200,000 — and a murky word-salad job description.
The person would be responsible for “establishing policy vision and direction related to Enforcement” and expected to “manage and coordinate across the assigned agencies, offices, and boards.”
“At best, he’s hypocritically spending money we don’t have on his supporters,’’ a Democratic operative said of Mamdani.
“At worst, he is breaking the law by using taxpayer dollars for political benefit.
“City Hall now needs to be super clear about why these hires are needed and how they’re chosen.”
Another Dem insider sniped, “Someone should remind the Mayor that the city’s budget is not like his daddy’s credit card.
“Taxpayers who are already struggling should not be bankrolling useless woke jobs for socialists who can’t get real jobs in the real world.”
Some of the posts would fuel Hizzoner’s newly minted offices for Economic Justice and Mass Engagement — but also pad out the city’s existing Washington, DC, office.
The hiring spree comes as Mamdani pushes for higher taxes on New York City’s wealthiest and massive corporations — or, failing that, a 9.5% across-the-board property tax hike — to help close what he claims is a $5.4 billion budget gap.
But as the fresh-faced mayor has cast the budget shortfall as a crisis, he has also padded out his ranks since taking office, swelling the mayoral monthly paychecks by nearly 12% for the month of March compared to the same time last year, according to a review of city checks.
If he hires for the full slate of positions, City Hall’s payroll would jump by 20% compared to his predecessor Eric Adams, where salaries stayed stagnant throughout his single term and only rose slightly from former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“The mayor must lead by example. It’s poor leadership to ask New Yorkers to endure service cuts and tax increases without sharing the sacrifice,” said an ex-City Hall staffer under the Bloomberg administration.
The Post previously revealed that the Office of Mass Engagement was hiring more than a dozen cushy jobs catered to activists, costing the taxpayer roughly $2 million.
But Mamdani’s DSA-aligned outreach arm — billed as a training apparatus “to engage and drive mass governance projects and campaigns” — isn’t apparently enough for the admin to connect with advocacy groups.
The mayor is additionally hiring a senior adviser for legislative advocacy.
The $155,000 salaried job “will be the primary liaison between the Mayor’s Office and the advocacy community,” the post reads.
The help-wanted sign is also hanging in the window for his loosely defined Office of Economic Justice — which is headed by a controversial Biden-era official, Julie Su, who sources said dragged her feet for months to start on March 1, despite being announced to the post in January.
The listing for an “enforcer’’ says the person will coordinate with various agencies, such as the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the Citywide Commission on Human Rights, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, to ensure enforcement of economic justice to “create a more equitable and vibrant New York City.”
Hizzoner is also looking for someone to coordinate his “free” childcare program with a job listing for a senior project manager in the Mayor’s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, which falls under Deputy Mayor Su.
The up to $150,000-a-year job “will lead strategic initiatives to strengthen and expand the child care system across New York City,” the listing says.
Likewise, the “senior advisor for fast and free buses” carries a $180,000 salary. Their job comes with “latitude to exercise a wide degree of authority in performing this role and is expected to exercise judgment to make timely and appropriate decisions” to fulfill Mamdani’s campaign promise, the listing states.
The city listed two spots — a director of NYC World Cup Activations and a project manager for NYC World Cup programming — just this month, despite the tournament two months away, to help “lead the planning and delivery of inclusive, community-based public programming.”
Both are temporary, through August, under the Economic Justice office, with the director’s salary listed as $140,000 and the manager’s at $105,000.
The DC-related jobs will expand the city’s existing presence in the nation’s capital, where they coordinate with federal agencies and other states, as well as securing grant money and other funding.
The office was often the first to get scaled back during budget woes, such as when it shrank to three staffers under Adams.
During the Adams-era cuts, dubbed PEGs, the staff shrank in half to three.
“That’s a job program,” the former Bloomberg aide quipped when sent a listing for Mamdani’s Deputy Director & Chief of Staff for the Office of Federal Affairs.
Another Democratic operative, who previously worked in city government, slammed the addition.
“There is a purpose to the office, but there’s little purpose to a socialist army.”
City Hall did not respond to a Post request for comment.
