NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams has estimated that the city will spend $4.3 billion on the local asylum-seeker crisis by next summer — but his budget director suggested Tuesday that eye-popping price tag could actually be an understatement.
The budget boss, Jacques Jiha, issued the warning during an at times contentious City Council hearing in which Democratic members of the chamber blasted Adams’ push to cut funding in next fiscal year’s budget for a variety of social service, education and cultural agencies.
Jiha testified that the proposed cuts are justified because of the “fiscal emergency” posed by the city’s migrant crisis. The situation is getting so dire, Jiha said, that the administration is likely to increase its projection for how much the city will shell out on the crisis by July 1, 2024.
