The Bronx Borough President’s Office hosted a virtual meeting discussing the mayor’s Preliminary Budget for fiscal year 2027, which was released on Feb. 17.
The meeting was held to give residents, nonprofits, community groups and educational institutions the opportunity to provide feedback on the mayor’s budget for the Bronx.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said that she is “very concerned” about the possibility of a property tax increase, outlined as one of two solutions to the two-year $5.4 billion budget gap in the preliminary budget for FY27, which must legally be balanced by the deadline.
“We have to have a zero balance, which creates a lot of challenges because we have to identify revenue streams as well as some of the ongoing expenses that the city of New York has,” Gibson said.
In order to address the gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has offered two paths, a preferred solution and a last resort solution.
Solution one would be increasing personal income taxes for wealthier New Yorkers and corporate taxes on the most profitable corporations.
Solution two would be implementing a 9.5% property tax and raiding the reserves, placing the crisis on the “backs of working and middle-class New Yorkers.”
Mamdani hopes that the city won’t have to turn to “such drastic measures” to address the gap, but if their preferred solution fails, the Mamdani Administration will have no other choice but to follow through with their proposed option.
Gibson said that in a budget briefing with fellow borough presidents and New York City Council members, the 9.5% property tax increase caught the most attention.
“I am opposed to the proposed 9.5% property tax increase, as we represent many working-class homeowners who are struggling to afford living in our city and any other proposals that would cause undue hardship on our residents and families,” Gibson told the Bronx Times in a statement.
Gibson said that the property tax structure is “flawed and outdated,” and hopes that the property tax proposal will cause Albany to urgently address the inequity.
The final executive budget is set to be released in late March or early April with some modifications, according to the borough president.
Gibson said Mayor Mamdani is trying to avoid cuts to city services and his administration hopes that Albany will send more money to increase the budget, but some of the vacant spots in agencies will not be filled for cost savings, as budget negotiations continue.
“While fiscal responsibility is essential, it is our responsibility to ensure that efforts to balance the budget do not come at the expense of the working families, older adults, and young people who rely on critical city services,” Gibson said in a statement.
Gibson also said she would like to see an increase in the New York City Fire Department’s budget to “see the fifth firefighter baselined into the budget for every fire house in the Bronx.”
“The city’s budget is growing. Spending has increased exponentially. There’s a couple million dollars set aside for warming centers,” she said.
“There’s a couple of million dollars set aside to add a fifth firefighter to some of our fire houses, particularly in the Bronx, where we’ve seen far too many fires.”
These new costs along with emergency food assistance, hiring more attorneys, supporting immigrant families and funding the New York City Department of Sanitation for the new snowstorms weren’t factored into last year’s budget.
Gibson hopes that she can find common ground with Mayor Mamdani.
“If anything, I said to the mayor, we were looking to add more money for cultural organizations, colleges and universities, for parks, the 1% minimum that we’ve been fighting for for years. A lot of good things that we wanted to add,” she said.
Unless there’s a significant amount of new revenue, there won’t be an increase in funding for programs and services, according to Gibson.
Gibson assured that there are a lot of “moving parts” in this budget process, but she encourages people to continue sharing their recommendations with her office and connecting with local council members and the Bronx delegation.
“We will issue our official response to the mayor’s preliminary budget at our next borough board meeting, and I look forward to working closely with our fellow borough presidents, colleagues in the city council, and stakeholders to identify ways to address the city’s budget deficit during this process,” she said.
Reach Keke Grant-Floyd at keiwana.grantfloyd19@gmail.com. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
