New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday said his team has been working hard to communicate the city's funding priorities as Albany legislators debate the 2025 fiscal year budget, while also applauding a significant drop in crime.
Speaking at his weekly press conference alongside Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Adams said his funding goals include money to be allocated towards childcare vouchers from the Administration for Children's Services (ACS), for the NYPD to have enough funds to fight recidivism, as well as providing tax cuts for working-class families.
City Hall officials also celebrated an overall decline in major crime. The city broke a 30-year record for the fewest number of shooting incidents in the first two months of the year, according to a NYPD press release.
In February 2025, there were 1,328 fewer major crime incidents reported – a 14.5% decrease compared to the same period in 2024 (7,821 vs. 9,149). Transit crime was down 15.1% (135 vs. 159) following the deployment of officers to the platforms and trains, including overnight. The results fom February mark the third consecutive month of double-digit decreases in crime, following a 15.5% decrease in crime in December 2024 and 16.8% decrease in crime in January 2025.
That said, recidivism continues to be a major sore point.
“The criminal justice reforms of 2019 created a revolving door...out of our criminal justice system,” said Tisch, noting that there was a 146% recidivism rate for felony assault, 118% for auto theft, 83% percent for robbery, 64% for shoplifting, 71% for grand larceny and 61% for burglary.
"It's a travesty,” said Tisch. "In New York City, we do not have a surging crime problem, but we do have a surging recidivism problem."
Both the mayor and Tisch said they hope Albany legislators change the way prosecutors hand over evidence to the defense, or what is known as discovery laws.
“I think it's quite remarkable that you have the governor, the mayor, the police commissioner, and all five district attorneys in New York City agreeing in the initial proposal on what the substantive changes to the discovery law should be,” said Tisch.
Governor Kathy Hochul has said streamlining discovery laws will close loopholes that have delayed trials and stop cases from being thrown out on minor technicalities.
Albany’s annual deadline for budget negotiations is April 1; negotiations are currently stalled and the deadline has been extended.
“We're still in negotiation, and as we say over and over again, we're going to land the plane,” said Adams.
Adams, who has yet to post a campaign website or attend a mayoral debate amongst his current competitors, faces a Thursday deadline to gather enough petitions to be placed on the Democratic ticket for the June primary. He said he is not worried about the perception of not campaigning enough.
“So it just happens that my mayoral duties is being present in the public, is doing off topics, is meeting you in the street. So I'm not sure what people, I think this is more of a belief than the reality,” said Adams.
When asked what he thought about mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's plan to create a Department of Community Safety that would take over part of the NYPD's job in reducing violent crime, the mayor said it was similar to what he had already implemented.
“I'm sorry, defund the police Mamdani believes all of a sudden he wants to talk about more community-based policing, something that many of you know, I cut my teeth on this, they're reinventing the wheel,” said Adams.
The mayor also took issue with Mamdani's plan on increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and corporations.
“For him to say that he wants a billion dollar tax on New Yorkers, that hurts the economy," Adams said. "There's a reason that the bond raters continue to give us the bond rating that we deserve. These pie-in-the-sky ideas that people are running prior to coming into the real work of running a city of this level of complexity, it's just unrealistic.”
Editor's Note: The mayor's weekly press conference took place on Tuesday, a day prior to the dismissal of Adams' federal corruption charges.
