Speaker Johnson and other elected officials urge federal aid, expanded testing and contact tracing as budget gap grows

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and other elected leaders briefed Community Board 2 on the city’s COVID-19 response, saying the crisis had created an immediate and deep budget shortfall and outlining the steps the city needs to reopen safely.

Speaker Corey Johnson told the board the city faces an unprecedented fiscal gap and that federal help is essential. “We are going to need, those federal dollars and revenue replacement money, from Washington,” Johnson said, adding that the city’s projected budget deficit had grown from roughly $8 billion to “north of $10 billion.” He said that absent federal aid the city will be forced to consider broad cuts and urged Congress to act.

The speaker and other elected officials described a two-track effort: short-term triage to keep vulnerable residents safe and long-term planning to scale up testing, contact tracing, quarantine capacity and surveillance necessary for reopening. Johnson said the city “will need to hire between 8 and 12,000 New Yorkers” for contact tracing and that large-scale community testing must be coupled with quarantine space so positive cases are not sent home to infect family members.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Hospitals, emphasized uneven strain across hospital systems. Rivera said the public hospital system and hospitals serving certain neighborhoods had been disproportionately stressed and that council staff were looking at formulas for charity-care funding distribution. She described the Council’s Open Streets proposal (covered separately) and said the Council was working on bills to protect tenants, small landlords and small businesses.

Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Senator Brad Hoylman (spelled in some materials as Hoilman) also briefed the board on state‑level budget pressures and relief efforts. Glick said the state would likely present a plan with cuts in the near term but that more federal dollars would reduce the need for severe reductions. She urged careful targeting for unemployment assistance and other relief programs and said the state was working to move surplus farm goods to food banks rather than have food destroyed.

Officials described several immediate operational needs: more neighborhood testing sites, better replenishment of personal protective equipment and a surge in volunteer and constituent services to reach seniors, students and food‑insecure households. Speaker Johnson thanked Council staff members and community volunteers who had organized deliveries and outreach to vulnerable residents.

Why it matters: The elected officials framed the city’s reopening as contingent on federal relief and a substantial scale-up of testing and tracing capacity. Those factors, they said, will determine the scale and distribution of service cuts and how quickly the city can restore economic activity.