NYC Budget Allocates Almost $7 Million to ‘Trans Equity,’ Nothing for Promised Police Hires
The New York City Council approved a new budget on Tuesday that allocates almost $7 million for “trans equity” programs and doesn’t include any spending for the additional police officers Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised to hire.
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Mamdani previously pledged to hire 580 new cops, but the money for the new positions was noticeably absent from the city’s most recent $126 billion spending plan.
“Why isn’t there more money for police?” state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar said in reaction to the budget.
Mamdani’s pledge to hire more cops received pushback from his most progressive supporters, including the Democratic Socialists of America, New York Communities for Change, and Desis Rising Up & Moving. In a letter opposing the expanded police force, 70 likeminded organizations criticized the mayor, citing his previous commitment to limit any additional police officers in the city.
“Only in Kathy Hochul’s New York are your hard-earned tax dollars funding drag queen story hours instead of new police officers, roads, and schools,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running as a Republican for New York governor, said. He described the budget as a “slap in the face.”
Mamdani and the Democratic-dominated city council came to an agreement on the budget just moments before the July 1 deadline. The budget allocates $40,000 of taxpayer money to drag story hours, $600,000 to the Caribbean Equality Project, and $320,000 to Pride Center of Staten Island, among other expenditures.
The $7 million for “trans equity” programs and services was described as necessary “to help empower the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community,” the council wrote in the budget that was approved by the mayor.
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The enhanced spending on transgender projects was ironically passed the same day the U.S. Supreme Court upheld bans keeping men out of female sports and spaces.
The budget also allocates: $1 million to Destiny Tomorrow, an LGBT group based in the Bronx, creating the “first-ever transitional housing program for transgender New Yorkers”; $705,000 to Gay Men’s Health Crisis; and $275,000 to Services And Advocacy For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender Elders, Inc.
Transgender activists celebrated the new budget: Allen Roskoff, head of the Jim Owles Liberal LGBT Democratic Club lauded the city council for “do[ing] everything in our power to protect these children from hate orchestrated by far right Republicans.” Police and public safety advocates, meanwhile, are concerned about the depleted workforce, especially heading into busy summer months.
“The massive summer workload is just starting to hit, and police officers are already burning out and leaving by the hundreds,” said Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association.
Currently, there are fewer police officers in New York City than there were on Sept. 11, 2001, City Council Speaker Julie Menin said. “We need to be adding police officers,” she said.
The budget failed to address other issues, like increasing the firefighter workforce, as well as a promised increase in funding for the Department of Parks and Recreation.
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