Dean Fuleihan is feeling good about closing the city’s budget gap with state help

How did the Mamdani administration decide to raise the alarm about a projected $12 billion two-year budget gap back in January? The gap they trumpeted was reduced to $7 billion by Tin Cup Day two weeks later, and with some extra money the governor agreed to commit to New York City, it was down to $5.4 billion, prompting questions about whether the mayor cried wolf. 

Speaking about the shrinking gap at a New York Law School breakfast on Thursday, First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan pointed to the three comptrollers. “I understand this became somewhat confusing, but we basically started with what the two city controllers and the state controller had put out, and the city controller really at the same time that we talked about: We have a $12 billion problem,” Fuleihan said. 

Indeed, former city Comptroller Brad Lander, current city Comptroller Mark Levine and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli all had projected huge upcoming deficits. “Then when the mayor testified in Albany, the problem was $7 billion because we had aggressively talked about revenue, and we had already started to say, OK, we're going to have to do $1.7 billion of savings. And then the governor gave us an additional $1.5 billion. And that led to the problem that we're now confronted with, which is the $5.4 billion,” Fuleihan said.

Fuleihan seemed confident the state would step in to help New York City fill that gap. “We hope the state will be much higher than 16% (of the city’s fiscal year 2027 plan currently budgeted). That's part of the effort that we're right now, I believe, successfully discussing in Albany,” Fuleihan said. 

As Politico New York reported, the Legislature’s one-house budget proposals are expected to once again include provisions to raise taxes on the rich, as Mamdani wants. As for a final deal with Gov. Kathy Hochul, Fuleihan told reporters he speaks with the governor’s team “every day.”