Last week, I went back to Bayside High School in Queens to deliver the Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget — the Best Budget Ever — in the same place I attended high school. My message was simple: this budget is not some abstract set of numbers; it is a statement about what we value and how we are investing in the people of New York City — keeping them safe, making the five boroughs more affordable, protecting quality of life, and making sure this is the best place to raise a family.
The decisions we made in this budget were guided by my own lived experience, and the struggles I saw my mother go through. She worked three jobs just to put food on the table for me and my siblings — and she could have used a helping hand. Put simply, our city once betrayed working people but we have not allowed that to continue under our administration. So this is the budget she needed, and one million of other working-class people across this city need today. It makes real investments in the areas working-class families care about most, including child care, ‘After-School for All,’ health care, education, public safety, affordability, quality of life, and so much more. It is not a budget that favors the few, it is a budget for all New Yorkers.
