New York City parks are poised to lose more than 1,400 staffers under Mayor Eric Adams’ latest budget cuts, a dramatic staffing reduction that could result in certain parks being cleaned as little as once a week.
The effect would likely leave the city’s 1,700 parks dirtier and unsafer, with bathrooms in worse condition and summer pool openings delayed, according to advocates.
“There’s no secret who this is going to have the most impact on,” Adam Ganser, executive director of the nonprofit group New Yorkers for Parks, told Gothamist. “It’s people who don’t have resources, who rely on parks as a place to take their families.”
The grim scenario was one of several that city councilmembers laid out during an hours-long public hearing Monday where they sought to interrogate the Adams administration over steep cuts in the city’s current spending.
Adams has called for significant across-the-board cuts to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit driven by the expiration of pandemic aid as well as migrant spending. In response, the Council has argued that the mayor has mismanaged the migrant crisis and that further cuts will erode key services many working- and middle-class families rely on.
“To be sure, we face fiscal challenges,” said Shekar Krishnan, a Queens councilmember who chairs the parks and recreation committee. “But to go after the essential services that our most vulnerable New Yorkers depend on is going to increase income inequality.”
Park advocates have long lobbied the city to spend more on green public spaces, which experienced more usage during the pandemic. The parks department is set to lose nearly $90 million in funding over the next two years, according to Krishnan.
Throughout the hearing, Adams’ budget director Jacques Jiha answered councilmembers’ protests by reminding them the city faces a projected $7 billion budget gap in 2025 that must be filled.
“We have to make tough choices,” Jiha said flatly.
Under the November…
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