Eric Adams Promised 1% Of NYC Budget For City's Parks; Instead, 100s Of Positions Unfilled After Substantial Cuts

[hatrack]

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Adams committed early in his campaign to push for 1 percent of the city budget to fund the Parks Department—part of a demand by the Play Fair for Parks coalition, a movement of hundreds of city organizations to address issues in local parks. So far, Adams has not delivered. During his administration, the Parks Department has accounted for about 0.6 percent of the city’s budget.

“That’s been, for a lot of us in this sector, one of the most disappointing outcomes of the past almost four years now,” said Emily Walker, the senior manager for external affairs at the Natural Areas Conservancy, a nonprofit that advocates for the care of natural areas in the city. “We had a commitment from him as a candidate on the campaign trail that never really ultimately came to fruition,” she said.

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his fiscal year, according to the executive budget, the Parks Department has been allocated $667.3 million—more than last year, but only around 0.57 percent of the total budget. In comparison to other large American cities, like Chicago, New York is woefully behind. Chicago’s total budget for fiscal year 2025 was around $17.3 billion. The Chicago Park District, which manages the 8,800 acres of the city’s green space, was allocated $598.5 million that year, which amounts to around 3.5 percent of the city’s total budget—proportionately almost 7 times more than what New York City gives for the care of its local parks.

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In 2023, as part of a program to address budget shortfalls, Adams demanded cuts across agencies and eventually instituted a citywide hiring freeze. This had a significant impact on the Parks Department, leading to staff reductions and a decline in the quality and frequency of park maintenance. By May 2024, the City Council was demanding a restoration of $38.2 million for the Parks Department to bring back an estimated 659 positions that had been lost. The council’s concerns largely went unaddressed in last year’s executive budget, which showed a marked decline of more than $55 million in park funds compared to the preceding year.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05092025/mayor-eric-adams-new-york-city-parks/

[marble falls]

1. He needn't worry: TACO will be glad to send in Federal troops to police those parks.