With NYC red ink worse than advertised, why’s Eric Adams nixing cuts?

Opinion

editorial

By Post Editorial Board

Mayor Adams is playing hero again, canceling a round of spending cuts set for April.

Major mistake, when the city’s fiscal outlook is far worse than his budgets admit.

A new Citizens Budget Commission report warns that under the mayor’s budget, the city won’t have nearly enough cash to keep current programs and services going — even if it somehow manages to close the looming multibillion gaps the plan acknowledges.

Indeed, it says the red ink for the next four years is billions higher than advertised.

So why did Adams just cancel more cuts? And after nixing other belt-tightening moves earlier?

Turns out, even Hizzoner’s supposedly balanced $109.4 billion plan for Fiscal 2025, which begins July 1, is $3.6 billion shy of what’s needed for current services, the CBC reports.

And the gaps grow worse after that: The four-year deficit that Adams & Co. pegs at an alarming $16.3 billion is actually an unthinkable $31.2 billion, nearly twice as much.

If the economy crashes, that number grows worse still; New York is beyond screwed.

Why are the numbers so out-of-whack? To make the bottom line seem better, city budgeteers lowball expenses, like overtime for cops, knowing full well the true costs will likely be higher.

Recurring programs are “paid for” with expiring federal pandemic aid or short-term, one-time injections of city funds.

Just this year, the city used unexpected revenue, savings from lower-than-projected migrant outlays and some reserve funds, in part, to plug a “sudden” $2.5 billion hole.

This is no way to budget.

Hiding cash shortfalls is not only deceptive but dangerous: It prevents debate on fiscal decisions and risks upping the pressure to find more cash, such as from tax hikes, when a crunch hits.

Precisely what overtaxed New Yorkers don’t need.

What’s the point of a budget anyway, if it doesn’t offer a reasonably accurate estimate of expenses and how they’ll be funded?

Blame Mayor Bill de Blasio for starting this shady practice before the pandemic and growing it even more by using “federal COVID aid for recurring programs,” as the CBC notes.

Adams, by contrast, has taken steps to end the shenanigans by boosting allocations for underfunded programs.

But his actions haven’t gone remotely far enough; his budget needs to be far more honest about future costs.

He needs to be frank about what the city can and cannot afford in the years ahead.

And amid a $31 billion deficit, the very last thing Adams should be doing is caving to pressure and canceling planned cuts needed to help limit the pain down the road.