New York City taxpayers have spent $306 million on migrants since July 1 — bringing the total tab for the ongoing immigration crisis to nearly $5.5 billion, according to new numbers released by the city Thursday.
The figures — which were updated by the Adams administration to include spending since the start of this fiscal year — are hundreds of millions of dollars more than the $5 billion dollar price tab included in earlier city tallies first reported by the Post Tuesday.
In addition to the spending since July, the asylum-seeker funding tracker also adjusted the spending from the prior two fiscal years combined from $4.88 billion to nearly $5.2 billion — for a total of totalling $5.46 billion over the duration of the crisis.
The spending since July includes $112 million on housing/shelter, $137 million for social services and supplies, $29 million on IT and administrative costs, $23 million for food and
$7 million for health care.
Meanwhile, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli issued a report Thursday saying the migrant crisis continues to be a drain on Big Apple coffers.
“The city continues to bear the majority of the burden for the significant cost of helping asylum seekers,” DiNapoli said.
DiNapoli said it’s strong tax collections from business and tourism– more than anything — that’s kept the city treasury afloat post-pandemic while grappling with the migrant crisis.
“Higher than expected revenues in recent years have been a key factor in allowing the city to fund under budget items and new programs ….including significant cost of managing the asylum seeker influx,” the comptroller said during a state Financial Control Board meeting Thursday.
City Hall estimates it will absorb 69% of the costs to care for migrants, with the state 30% and the federal government, just 1% over the next few years.
The border-migrant crisis has been a raging issue in the race for the White House between former Republican President Joe Biden and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, her party’s nominee after replacing President Biden.
Gotham has assisted and housed more than 212,000 migrants since the spring of 2022, and nearly 64,000 are still in the city’s shelter and social service system.
Adam’s budget projects outlays of $ 4.7 billion to aid migrants the current fiscal year, $4 billion next year, $3 billion in 2027 and $850 million in 2028.
DiNapoli said there’s evidence the rate of spending for migrants will drop, given a reduction in arrivals coming from the southern border.
“The population of asylum seekers in the city’s care has stabilized in recent months and has grown slower than anticipated in the city’s projections,” the comptroller’s analysis said.
He also cited President Biden’s executive order to temporarily suspend the processing of asylum seekers’ claims at the border, estimating that and other actions could curb the Big Apples costs on migrant care by $1.25 billion this year, assuming the same daily costs of $353 daily per migrant household.
Adams, during the Financial Control Board meeting, said his administration has been able to slash projected migrant costs by 30%, by imposing time limits on stays for individuals and families.
“We accomplished this by being smart and by ensuring we had real programs in place, particularly our 30-day program that was in place for single adults. New Yorkers cannot sustain people coming from anywhere on the globe staying as long as they want on New Yorkers’ dime. That makes no sense, and we were not going to tolerate that,” the mayor said.
He also credited Gov. Kathy Hochul, who chairs the financial control board, with providing the city with more than $3 billion in state aid to help cover the cost of sheltering and providing other services to migrants, which “substantially reduced strain” on the Big Apple’s budget.
A City Hall spokesperson said after the control board meeting, “By remaining fiscally prudent, we overcame great challenges to close a $7.1 billion budget gap that was driven in part by the costs of housing and caring for asylum seekers, though we still face risks.
“The administration will continue to protect the city’s fiscal outlook to ensure that New York remains safe and clean, and that we make our city more affordable and livable for working-class people.”
