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Mayor Adams’ ‘best budget ever’ falls short on parks, advocates say
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Jul 1, 2025
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Jul 1, 2025
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Parks advocates are criticizing Mayor Eric Adams' latest $116 billion budget for shortchanging funding for green and open spaces that they argue are critical to New Yorkers’ quality of life.
Roughly 700 positions lost to budget cuts under Adams have not been restored despite increased total spending on parks, which is driven by new programs, according to city officials. The Adams administration and parks advocates have been locked in a battle for months over whether the latest spending is sufficient.
Adam Ganser, who heads the advocacy group New Yorkers for Parks, said the unfilled positions will affect everything from tree care to repairs and general maintenance.
“Mowing lawns, maintaining ball fields, trash removal, all will continue to be pain points for the agency and for New Yorkers,” he told Gothamist in a text.
On Monday, City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the parks committee, said the loss of the hundreds of positions occurred despite efforts by the Council to reinstate them. “We have encountered resistance after resistance,” he said. “This year, we've added 173 positions. But there's more work to do.”
New York City spends over $667 million on its parks system, which consists of over 1,700 parks, playgrounds and recreation facilities. Advocates have increasingly pressed mayors to increase funding for green and open spaces to 1% of the city’s total budget, which would amount to over $1 billion.
Jacques Jiha, the city’s budget director, has disputed the claim that parks’ funding was lacking in any way.
“The Parks budget is at the highest level, the headcount is the highest level,” he said at a press conference with the mayor on Friday to announce a budget deal between the mayor and City Council.
Adams, who is running as an independent in November, said the city would increase headcount in his “next term.”
He proclaimed his latest spending plan as “the best budget ever” and pointed to increased funding for new programs, including $10 million to hire more than 170 staffers to keep parks safer and cleaner.
But park supporters aren’t satisfied.
“You’d expect that in the summer of an election year, as New Yorkers flock to their favorite parks on the weekends and in the evenings, that the Mayor would take this moment to finally invest in improving our parks system,” Ganser said in a statement last week.
Ganser told Gothamist that the administration is trying to mask the overall loss of park employees with newly added jobs.
He said the prior staffing roles covered a range of areas, from operations to public safety to the forestry division. “Attrition and pay cuts have affected every part of the agency,” he said.
During a Council hearing in March, former Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue acknowledged that the agency had slowed down hiring to meet budget cuts.
At the same time, she said the administration was funding new programs that would add to total headcount, including swim safety and the newly built Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center, which will open in the fall.
Tagged
eric adams
parks
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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