NYPD to cut overtime as Big Apple feels budget pinch of migrant crisis with city departments being told to slash budgets to fund shelters
New York’s police officers will face overtime cuts in an attempt to try and get the city’s migrant crisis, as funds to keep cops on the job will now be diverted to funding shelters.
Upwards of 110,000 migrants are littered across the New York area and Mayor Eric Adams’ office has estimated the issue will cost New York City $12billion over three years.
Jacques Jiha, the city’s budget director, has told not just the police department, but fire, sanitation and corrections to drastically reduce overtime.
‘The mayor will … issue a directive to implement an overtime reduction initiative for our city’s four uniformed agencies (NYPD, FDNY, DOC/DSNY),’ he said in a memo Saturday
‘These agencies must submit a plan to reduce year-to-year OT spending,’ he added, saying that they must send City Hall monthly reports to track their progress toward the city’s goal for overtime reduction.
No layoffs are being proposed by the city as part of attempts to keep budgets in check, according to the New York Post. There will, however, be a hiring freeze, save for departments like public health and safety.
It comes days after Mayor Adams went on a highly publicized rant, tearing into the migrant crisis crippling the Big Apple – which he warned will ‘destroy’ the city without urgent action.
Speaking to furious residents at a town hall meeting on Wednesday, he admitted he doesn’t see a solution to the problem as he slammed the lack of help from Joe Biden.
‘Let me tell you something, New Yorkers. Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,’ he conceded. ‘This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.’
However, migrant services are also apparently on the chopping block, as Jiha wrote in the memo.
‘We are also reducing services being provided to asylum seekers and closely monitoring these services to ensure they are being delivered in the cost efficient and cost effective manner possible,’ he said.
The city will also attempt to cut travel between the city and the state capital of Albany and the nation’s capital of Washington.
He blamed both the state and federal government for ‘grossly inadequate’ funding to help with the crisis.
‘The city is experiencing a humanitarian crisis we did not cause,’ Jiha wrote.
Patrick Hendry, head of the city’s biggest police union, the Police Benevolent Association, said that this is no time for cuts.
‘It is going to be impossible for the NYPD to significantly reduce overtime unless it fixes its staffing crisis,’ Hendry said. ‘We are still thousands of cops short, and we’re struggling to drive crime back to pre-2020 levels without adequate personnel.
Despite mayor Adams’ cries for help from the state and federal government, the city has not received aid to cover the extra costs, so the $4.7billion would come from the city’s budget.
That amount is equal to the budgets for the city’s sanitation, fire and parks departments combined.
There are now nearly 60,000 migrants in the city’s care, with about 21,000 new migrant children starting school this year.
As the school year kicked off on Thursday, some schools were forced to turn away students as the classrooms overflowed.
City officials have said they expect the number asylum seeker population to reach nearly 33,980 households this fiscal year.
The city is currently paying about $385 a night per migrant family that needs housing and feeding. According to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, asylum seekers are costing the city roughly $10 million every day.
An exasperated Adams did not mince words on Wednesday as he said the city’s survival hangs on outside help to deal with the crisis, renewing his appeal to the federal government to help the city avert a budgetary crisis as expenses mount — now projected at $12.2 billion by the end of next year.
‘It started with a madman down in Texas deciding he wanted to bus people up to New York City,’ he said, referencing Texas governor Gregg Abbot’s busing of migrants to the city.
Adams continued: ‘110,000 migrants we have to feed, clothe, house… we have to educate their children, wash their laundry sheets… give them everything they need.’
Indeed, many of the migrants have been bused in from southern states like Texas and Florida as the conservatives governors of these states look to put some of the migration pressure on progressive governments and President Biden in Washington.
They are not undocumented but do not have work permits, as they must wait months to receive them after applying for asylum.
Experts say this is one of the main issues, as the migrants can’t work and become independent enough to find their own housing.
