A Tense Time for Parks, Libraries and the Arts

Good morning. It’s Monday. The clock is ticking on the city’s budget negotiations. We’ll examine what’s at stake. We’ll also look at how Representative Jamaal Bowman turned to national star power going into the Democratic primary on Tuesday.

By law, the city must have a budget by July 1 — a week from today. Negotiations between City Hall and the City Council are centering on reversing Mayor Eric Adams’s proposed cuts, and the haggling appeared to go slowly last week.

So once again, with the clock ticking and the give-and-take continuing, the last days of June will be tense as supporters of agencies or programs rally their bases.

The mayor acknowledged as much last week when he said that “we should just hold on to old reels of these same conversations.” Switching metaphors, he said that “we’re going to land the plane,” meaning that a budget deal would be reached.

This budget is particularly significant for Adams, a Democrat whose first term will be over at the end of 2025. His first round of budget negotiations in 2022 was less acrimonious, but some City Council members were frustrated over cuts to school budgets and later pushed to restore them. Last year, the negotiations were unusually strained. Adrienne Adams, a Democrat who is the City Council speaker, called the agreement that restored funding for some but not all Council priorities “bittersweet.”