Julie Menin touts fiscal responsibility while backing some very pricey bills

In the New York City budget showdown between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Menin has framed herself as the fiscally responsible adult, criticizing the mayor’s initial proposal to dip into the city’s reserves and his threat to raise property taxes to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

The speaker has expressed concerns that major rating agencies like Moody’s and Fitch have revised their financial outlook for the city from stable to negative due to the mayor’s initial proposal to draw almost $1 billion from the rainy day fund.

“We have been a hard ‘No’ on the property tax. We also are a hard ‘No’ on raiding the rainy day fund,” Menin said at her press conference presenting the council’s budget response. At the National Action Network convention last week, Menin said the council is focused on protecting the Black community, and that raising property taxes “is unacceptable, because if we were to do that, we would be hurting Black communities across our city.”

Some property taxes seem to be fair game. On Wednesday, Menin commended Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to tax second homes worth over $5 million, which would raise an estimated $500 million annually. 

But the speaker’s comments belie a more complicated position. The council under her watch keeps advocating for big-ticket bills framed as moral imperatives, even as Menin opposes some of the mayor’s more extreme suggestions to close the budget gap. Just a long-delayed rental voucher expansion mandate and a separate bill that would distribute $10,000 annual bonuses to teacher’s aides would add hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses in fiscal year 2027. 

These bills, which Menin has championed since before she was speaker, were not mentioned or accounted for in the council’s response to the mayor’s initial budget proposal. The council claimed it could close the $5.4 billion two-year budget gap without dipping into reserves, even while calling for an additional $1.1 billion in spending on their own priorities, like $25 million to expand the Fair Fares public transit subsidy for low-income people. 

The speaker’s office pointed out that the council suggested raising $1.1 billion in revenue from the city’s richest by the end of the next fiscal year, mainly by reducing a tax credit used by high-income filers. “This is the comprehensive approach we need to strengthen the City’s fiscal footing and tackle the affordability crisis without burdening working New Yorkers,” Menin said in a statement.

Mamdani’s administration declined to comment for this story. But the mayor attacked the council’s budget response earlier this month, calling it unrealistic and singling out Menin specifically. “Double counting previously identified savings, overestimating revenues, and exaggerating debt service savings does nothing to close a deficit,” he tweeted. 

The rental voucher price tag

Undiscussed in the council’s budget response plan is the expansion of CityFHEPS, the city’s rental voucher program that cost $1.2 billion last fiscal year. While the City Council mandated the program’s expansion in 2023 to house more New Yorkers, Mamdani appealed a court order that would require the city to implement it.

Broadening it would cost an additional $3 billion over the next four years, according to the fiscal watchdog Citizens Budget Commission, which often advocates against increased spending. Even without expansion, the program cost has surged since its 2018 launch.

The speaker’s office said they “strongly disagree” with the administration’s decision to further litigate the expansion. “The Council has repeatedly offered solutions to the administration that both ensure we house our city's most vulnerable New Yorkers and are also fiscally responsible,” said a spokesperson for the speaker. 

Supporters of a CityFHEPS expansion argue that rental assistance is cheaper than housing people in homeless shelters. That is true in the short term: the Citizens Budget Commission estimated that the daily cost of a rental voucher is $55, while the shelter costs $144. However, the average length of stay in shelters is 15 months, while CityFHEPS provides assistance for five years, with the possibility to extend. 

Former Mayor Eric Adams clashed with the City Council when it passed the CityFHEPS expansion law just one day after publishing a fiscal impact statement citing a $10 billion price tag over five years. In response, one of Adams’ Charter Revision Commissions in the following year proposed a requirement for the council to publish fiscal impact statements earlier in the legislative process. Voters passed this ballot proposal, which let the public see costs upfront and give the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget time to give its own financial estimate.

Paying teacher’s aides

Yet another expensive recurring cost is the paraprofessional pay bill, called the RESPECT Check. It would give an additional $10,000 bonus to full-time Department of Education teacher assistants annually and prorated raises for part-timers. 

The bill, a priority of the city teachers union, has the sign-on of 46 of 51 City Council members, and has been lauded by both Menin and the mayor during his campaign. However, the Mamdani administration opposed it after he entered office, arguing the bill would conflict with the city’s labor negotiations process by legislating raises outside of union wage talks. 

“If collective bargaining were to catch up to the needs of this workforce that is in crisis, then the bill would be repealed,” said Council Member and bill sponsor Carmen De La Rosa.

If passed, the bill would cost an estimated $244 million yearly once phased in, according to the council’s fiscal impact statement. De La Rosa said that despite the cost, the RESPECT Check would also save money by helping recruit and retain paraprofessionals, who currently have an average starting salary of about $32,000. “A lot of them have lived in homeless shelters because of the high cost of housing in the city,” she said. “Keeping these families housed would save the city money.” 

She also said that stronger paraprofessional staffing could help the city meet its educational obligations. Last fiscal year, the city spent $1.3 billion in so-called Carter Cases, where parents sue when the Department of Education fails to provide appropriate special needs services in public schools, as required by federal law. 

De La Rosa said hiring more paraprofessionals could help reduce those penalties in the long run, which Menin echoed, saying the annual Carter Case cost could be slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars. “We can’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to raising wages on these essential workers.”

Menin reportedly asked teacher union leaders to stage a protest outside of Mamdani’s 100-day address because of his opposition to the RESPECT Check, according to an email obtained by Politico Playbook. Spokespeople at both the teachers’ union and Menin’s office denied Menin’s role in the rally. 

Pricey miscellany 

The council is also considering bills that wouldn’t directly raise costs for the city, but would raise costs for other entities. Council Member Sandy Nurse has a bill to raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 per hour, a significant increase from the current $17, which would make it the highest in the country. 

Employers and business groups such as the Queens Chamber of Commerce oppose the $30 by 2030 bill, and the New York State Restaurant Association said it would drive prices to a level that consumers may be unwilling to pay for. Menin hasn’t taken a stance on the proposal, which hasn’t had a hearing yet.

And Council Member Chris Marte’s “No More 24” bill would ban 24-hour shifts for home care workers, who are typically paid for only 13 hours. The bill would split the 24-hour shift into two 12-hour shifts so they are paid in full.

Since most homecare workers are paid through Medicaid, this change would increase public costs significantly. 1199SEIU, a health care worker union, estimated this would cost an additional $460 million annually, split between the state and federal government. District Council 37, the city’s largest public-sector union, said this unfunded mandate could force provider agencies to shed home health jobs due to cost concerns, resulting in a loss of care for patients.  

Despite the cost, Menin stood by No More 24 last month at a worker sit-in related to the bill, vowing no changes. “Speaker Menin has long fought for strong worker protections,” said a council spokesperson. But the spokesperson qualified: “This legislation is still going through the legislative process, which allows for thorough public engagement, input, and negotiation.” 

The mayor is expected to present his executive budget by the end of the month, and negotiations with the council will continue until the budget is due June 30.