Back from cutback: Public deserves detail on Adams budget moves

Mayor Adams has reversed projected cuts to the NYPD, FDNY, Parks and Sanitation , while acknowledging that these would be tiny restorations in comparison to the scale of City Hall’s broader budget cutting. Apparently, the restorations were made possible by a $2 billion reduction in projected asylum seeker costs through next year, as well as higher than expected revenues.

The mayor, not too long ago, waved away the notion that the administration could be off about its projections on both these fronts, insinuating that these questions were politically motivated or asked by ingénues who failed to grasp the scale of the problems at hand. So much as mention of Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan or Comptroller Brad Lander seemed to annoy Adams, yet with these announcements he is at least tacitly acknowledging that the critics could, at the very least, be raising some of the right points.

Not that he’s avoided fire from fiscal conservatives, who continue to believe he hasn’t gone far enough. Beyond just the numbers here, making these types of surprise announcements in isolation, with apparently little consultation with the Council and no clear public analysis of the cost benefit of certain cuts, isn’t a great way to handle budgetary policy affecting millions of New Yorkers.

The mayor earlier had said, for example, that the only fair way to do things is across the board cuts, as obviously no agency has volunteered. Setting aside the wisdom of that approach, this premise kind of falls apart when, having found some extra cash, the mayor comes out and undoes the cuts for a few departments while leaving everything else untouched.

Obviously, cops and fire are essential lifesaving services, and, as the mayor is fond of pointing out, public safety is something of a prerequisite for any other city function. Nonetheless, it’s the same medicine (and reprieve) for everyone or it isn’t. We guess it isn’t. Quality of life matters greatly and even small cuts are felt.

A good example is the reduction to the libraries, which suspended Sunday service last month. The projected cost savings here is $23 million, which might sound like a lot to the average New Yorker but which is, if we’re being honest, pocket change in the context of the city budget. For comparison, this is roughly 15% what the NYPD spent last year just on overtime for subway patrols .

Anyone who’s spent time in a public library over the weekend will realize that the benefits aren’t theoretical. They’re chock full of families and young people in search of indoor spaces that feature books, computers and assorted classes and enrichment activities, all for free. There aren’t many spaces like that left, and their scaling back has real consequences.

It’s pointless to be too prescriptive about what exactly may or may not happen if Sunday service and other library benefits are suspended for a while, but it doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up how it might be bad for the people of the city. If these reversals are a drop in the fiscal bucket, that makes them simply a political choice, and it should be up to Adams to clearly explain to the public why this choice was worth making and others were not.

Perhaps he can look it up at the library..