City Council, mayor reach settlement; new capped voucher program, $125.8B FY27 budget headed to vote

Speaker Menon announced a settlement with the mayor and said the City Council would introduce and vote on legislation to create a new rental-assistance voucher program administered by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"This is a budget that secures the most ever capital and expense funding for the city council while also demonstrating prudent fiscal responsibility," the speaker said as she opened the session and described the "handshake" reached earlier with the mayor. She told colleagues the settlement would include a bill sponsored by Council Member Sanchez that would convert the existing FEPS arrangement into a program subject to annual appropriations and new oversight guardrails.

Council Member Sanchez framed the change as both fiscally responsible and aimed at moving families out of shelter and into stable housing. "The status quo doesn't work. New York City pays more for worse outcomes," Sanchez said, arguing the new program will be capped and split between shelter exits and community-based eviction prevention. She cited cost figures to make the case for vouchers: "$54 per day to keep a family housed in permanent housing versus $270 per day to keep that same family in shelter," and noted that "70% of shelter residents are families with children" and that roughly 20,000 children were born in a shelter in the last year.

Sanchez said the program will expand eligibility to people previously excluded from FEPS, including households in non-DSS shelters (such as runaway and homeless youth shelters), families displaced by fires or vacate orders, and justice-involved New Yorkers, and it will not add a new work requirement for newly eligible participants.

In response to questions about how the council will control costs, Speaker Menon and Sanchez said the new program is a capped appropriation and will include stronger verification and oversight after a recent audit by the State Controller found weaknesses in the prior FEPS administration. "It takes it from an entitlement program to one that is subject to appropriations," the speaker said, and Sanchez added that the new structure will require tenant-income verification, rent-reasonableness checks and steps to prevent duplicate broker fees.

The budget the council scheduled for a vote totals $125.8 billion for fiscal year 2027 and, according to the speaker, includes substantial investments the council described as aimed at affordability and stability: expanded housing vouchers, Fair Fares expansion, universal $1,000 college savings accounts for kindergartners, increased funding for libraries, $14.4 million restored in baseline parks funding, more than $5 million for deed-theft prevention and legal counseling for Black homeownership, and a set-aside of more than $350 million to bolster reserves.

Reporters asked the speaker whether the administration's last-minute decision to reverse plans to hire 580 police officers had been discussed; the speaker said the mayor informed her late the previous night and that it was not a decision she agreed with. She also confirmed the council is pursuing identified savings and procurement reforms that it says could reduce projected budget gaps.

Next steps: the speaker said the council will move to a vote on the FY27 budget and the companion bills and pre-considered resolutions during the stated agenda. The transcript records the agenda and introductions but does not record final vote results or outcomes for the items listed.