Farah Louis kicked off secretive NYC Council Budget Negotiating Team

When New York City Council Member Farah Louis was raided by the feds as part of a corruption probe last month, City Council Speaker Julie Menin declined to take steps to remove her from her powerful perch as chair of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, citing the ongoing nature of the federal investigation. Louis has not been accused of wrongdoing. 

But the speaker did quietly reprimand Louis, removing her from the council’s Budget Negotiating Team, a City Council source recently shared after City & State published a story about how Menin was handling the situation. A representative for Louis did not comment for this story.

The Budget Negotiating Team, handpicked by the speaker, is most directly involved in conversations with the mayoral administration about the city’s $127 billion budget. It’s a more informal group than the public facing committees and caucuses, but it’s the one everyone wants to be a part of. Known as BNT, they’ve met a handful of times so far this year, contributing to the council’s budget response to the Mamdani administration’s preliminary budget proposal. At meetings, the team reviews documents in person that they are not allowed to take out of the room to prevent leaks. Occasionally the group makes decisions by taking a vote. The team also has a role communicating budget priorities to the rest of the council. 

“At its core, BNT is the Council’s budget clearinghouse,” former Council Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan said in an email. “It’s where all 51 member priorities get triaged, negotiated, and turned into something workable. Think of it like dumping a pile of Legos on a table and then having to actually build a house out of them.”

The speaker’s office had repeatedly declined to share the list with City & State, but other council sources were less reticent. City & State pieced together a full list of members on the influential task force. It includes all of Menin’s leadership team except for Elsie Encarnacion, a first-term member the speaker appointed as deputy whip. Council Members Virginia Maloney and Phil Wong are the only first-termers on it. Council Members Crystal Hudson – Menin’s top rival in the speaker race – is on BNT, along with fellow Progressive Caucus members Chi Ossé, Shekar Krishnan and Jennifer Gutiérrez. Council Member David Carr is the only Republican on the team, though Wong, a conservative Democrat, is on the Common Sense Caucus with him.

Some notable people who were left off the BNT include Council Members Gale Brewer, the body’s most experienced member; Selvena Brooks-Powers, chair of the important Criminal Justice committee as the city looks to close Rikers Island; and Lincoln Restler and Althea Stevens, who teamed up to organize an internal vetting process last year to choose the next speaker.

“BNT is a big deal,” Brannan said. “Everyone wants to be on it because it feels like some elite, exclusive club, but once you get behind the velvet ropes, you realize it’s just more work and lots of it.”

Here’s the full list:
Julie Menin
Shaun Abreu
Linda Lee
Nantasha Williams
Kevin Riley
Eric Dinowitz
Yusef Salaam
Virginia Maloney
Sandra Ung
Shekar Krishnan
Lynn Schulman
Phil Wong
Jennifer Gutiérrez
Crystal Hudson
Chi Ossé
Chris Banks 
Susan Zhuang 
Mercedes Narcisse 
Kamillah Hanks 
David Carr