Mayor Adams’ announcement on his plans to cut city agency budgets by at least 5% largely as a result of the migrant crisis was initially planned for this week, but prematurely came out over the weekend after the mayor made remarks about it during a pre-taped television interview, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
The impromptu remarks, which Adams made during a pre-taped interview on PIX11 on Sunday, preempted the original plan to roll out the new policy during the week, blindsiding his staffers and forcing them to scramble with the announcement over the weekend.
The two sources who spoke to the Daily News about the planning snafu said it didn’t inspire much confidence in the administration’s ability to handle the migrant crisis, which is what prompted the weekend’s austerity announcement in the first place.
“If this is how the mayor runs the city, we’re all in big trouble,” said one of the sources.
Both sources only agreed to speak to The News anonymously out of fear of angering the mayor.
According to them, the mayor’s announcement, which was put out through a press release Saturday that was accompanied with a pre-taped video, came out after the mayor made a glancing mention of the policy during an interview with PIX11, which was taped Friday and aired Sunday.
“I was briefed by Jacques Jiha, my budget director, and we’re going to look through to the entire city, each agency, what we’re asking: every agency is going to have to do a 5% PEG, Program to Eliminate the Gap, finding efficiency,” Adams told PIX11 host Dan Mannarino during the pre-taped interview. “We did two rounds of that already. But we’re going to show New Yorkers exactly what we’re faced with because transparency is crucial here. I have to be honest to New Yorkers what we are up against.”
The 5% across-the-board cut to city agencies, which Adams is proposing for this coming November’s budget update, is likely to be followed by two additional 5% cuts in January and April, which would bring the total cut to 15%, city officials said.
Asked to comment about the scheduling snafu, officials from the Adams’ administration claimed that the announcement on PIX11 “was not inadvertent on the mayor’s part, nor was there an announcement on PEGs scheduled this week.”
A spokesman for the mayor did not immediately offer a response to The News’ inquires about the matter.