The budget drama isn’t over, but Mayor Spano just couldn’t wait any longer.
With the New York State Budget now almost six weeks late, and the City budget year set to begin on July 1, yesterday the Mayor released his draft 2026/27 executive city budget.
Calling his budget “one of the most difficult we have faced in a long time,” Spano has proposed a 5.25% property tax increase and no service or personnel cuts. Combined water and sewer rates will also increase 3.17%. The total annual cost of running the schools and the city government will be $1.57 billion as compared to $1.55 billion this year. Essentially flat, meaning we are paying more for the same product.
School Budget to Stay Steady
The Mayor touts that his proposed budget maintains funding to the Yonkers Public Schools at historically high levels. In his budget message he states: “Both municipal and Board of Education spending will remain steady, yet take into consideration contractual union costs, health insurance increases, rising pension costs, reimbursable service expenses, garbage disposal costs, special education needs, water rate increases and other rising costs.”
Regarding the costs of running the schools, the Mayor said that the school system “will likely need further restructuring to stabilize its finances and to accommodate for the loss of federal funds.”
Highest Property Tax Increase in Years
The 5.25% increase is the highest in recent years, and indicates that the costs of our expensive government are beginning to outstrip our ability to pay for them. The 5.25% is also strikingly similar to the adopted 5.27% increase in Westchester County’s portion of the property tax in the County’s 2026 budget – another indication that the costs of local government are increasing rapidly beyond what the taxpayers may tolerate.
The Mayor released the budget in a two-minute video posted on the City website and YouTube. The Mayor sat at his desk, with flags behind him, speaking earnestly into the camera.
For months the City has lobbied Albany for increases in state aid to fill a projected budget gap that was reportedly as high as $140 million. The Mayor and his finance team were seeking to have the State change the formula for how it calculates school aid for Yonkers. But upon a preliminary reading of the Mayor’s budget, it appears the Mayor now recognizes that there will be no transformative change this year.
The Mayor’s proposed budget faces the reality that the status quo in Albany remains in place, and Yonkers elected officials will need to once again fill the City’s structural budget gap using a combination of tax increases, rainy day fund balance, one shot revenue sources and other budgeting maneuvers that address the immediate problem but does not provide longer term financial stability.
More of the Same in 2027?
In other words, nothing has fundamentally changed, and we can expect more of the same in 2027, a year when Yonkers will be electing a new Mayor or perhaps Mayor Spano will seek to change the term limit law in the City Charter to allow him to run for an unprecedented fifth term in office.
The executive budget now goes to the City Council for review, and there will be a full slate of departmental budget hearings. In the meantime, the amount of State aid the City receives will be finalized when it adopts its budget.
The City Council will then adopt a budget, which, if past budgets serve as a guide, may ever so slightly reduce the rate of the property tax increase. The only unknown at this point is whether there will be a surprise in the State aid numbers that will require the City to make significant changes to the Mayor’s draft budget, but that appears unlikely.
The Yonkers Ledger will provide more detailed analysis of the City’s budget in the coming days.
