NYC Mayor Mamdani Presents $127B Budget With Tax Hike Ultimatum to State

Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented his first executive budget proposal for fiscal year 2027, totaling $127 billion — $5 billion more than the prior year — while confronting a projected $5.4 billion two-year deficit. This gap had already been reduced from a $12 billion figure announced three weeks earlier.

Mamdani outlined two paths: persuade Governor Hochul and the state legislature to raise income taxes on individuals earning over $1 million annually and on major corporations, generating roughly $4 billion per year; or, as a 'last resort,' raise the city's property tax rate by 9.5%, from 12.28% to 13.45%, affecting over three million homes and 100,000 commercial buildings. The Citizens Budget Commission estimated this would amount to roughly $700 more per year for a typical single-family homeowner.

Mamdani characterized the property tax threat as leverage, not preference, framing the choice as between taxing the wealthy or burdening working- and middle-class property owners. However, both options face significant political obstacles: Hochul has firmly opposed tax hikes during her reelection campaign, and City Council Speaker Julie Menin and finance chair Linda Lee immediately rejected the property tax idea.

The budget also includes cancellation of a plan to hire 5,000 additional NYPD officers and a roughly $22 million NYPD budget reduction. Separately, Mamdani announced a revamped homeless encampment policy led by outreach workers rather than police. Critics, including city budget watchdogs, noted that spending cuts — such as consolidating underenrolled schools and reforming special education reimbursements — were not prominently featured.

Most coverage omitted that the $5.4 billion deficit had already been reduced from $12 billion in just weeks, which provides important context for assessing the severity of the crisis. Few articles noted that New York City mayors routinely present deficit budgets followed by negotiations — this pattern spans decades and multiple administrations.

The inequities in New York City's existing property tax system — where homeowners in predominantly Black neighborhoods pay rates double those in predominantly white neighborhoods — received almost no attention outside one source, despite being directly relevant to evaluating the proposed hike's real-world impact. The specific revenue mechanisms Mamdani may be seeking to coax from the state beyond the binary he presented were also underexplored.

Right-leaning framing of this story benefits those who oppose progressive governance generally, using Mamdani's budget as a vehicle to argue against socialist economics writ large. Invoking comparisons to Florida and Margaret Thatcher serves a national political narrative more than a local policy analysis.

Center-left framing benefits moderate Democrats like Hochul by portraying her resistance as pragmatic rather than ideological. The overall media focus on the 'threat' framing — amplified across outlets — benefits those seeking to undermine Mamdani's leverage in negotiations by immediately signaling that his bluff has been called.