Standing on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan with other progressive activists on the frigid morning of February 19, PSC First Vice President Jen Gaboury explained to the crowd that last year’s budget fight at the city level was a tough one. Mayor Eric Adams demanded austerity cuts, and while the pushback forced the mayor to restore funding for some agencies, funding for CUNY was not restored.
“He abandoned CUNY,” Gaboury said.
PSC First Vice President Jen Gaboury speaks during a rally with community activists. (Credit: Paul Frangipane)
COMMUNITY COLLEGES
While CUNY receives the lion’s share of its funding from the state budget, CUNY’s community colleges rely heavily on city funding. Mayor Adams’s austerity has been devastating for students who rely on these institutions. As the PSC explained in a statement last year, the budget agreement included “a restoration of $15 million in operating support for community colleges,” but did not “offset the mayor’s $95 million previous cuts.” According to Gaboury, this has meant there are critical vacancies where staff and faculty positions are not being filled. PSC members have had their workloads explode in some cases; they are doing the work of two or three people. “That’s unacceptable,” she said.
During a City Council preliminary budget hearing on March 13, PSC President James Davis stressed the need for city investment into CUNY, noting that “since November 2024 enrollment has risen 3%,” including “a 6% increase at the community colleges and 4% in new graduate students.” Davis demanded a $140 million city investment in CUNY that would fund vital programs like ASAP, hire more advisors, give students free Metrocards and develop more programs to train health-care professionals.
SURVIVE AND THRIVE
“This council can take action to ensure our great public university not only survives, but thrives. CUNY’s enrollment continues to climb toward pre-pandemic figures; this council has worked to turn back years of austerity budgets and we still need you,” Davis said. “Students, faculty and staff at CUNY need you to stand with us.”
Gaboury was participating in a demonstration for the “People’s Budget,” a coalition of community groups and activists (including the PSC) that demands the mayor agree to a city budget plan later this year that funds education, social services and affordable housing. Zara Nasir, the executive director of The People’s Plan NYC, said that the coalition demands “fully funded education from 3-K to CUNY.” Comptroller Brad Lander, the city’s second-highest elected official and a candidate for mayor this year, said that the next budget must restore funding to CUNY because “it is our pipeline for social mobility.”
Nasir also said that “this is not a normal budget process.” The demonstration, which served as a kickoff for the coalition’s budget campaign, was held at a chaotic time for Mayor Adams. The Trump administration has fought to have the serious felony charges against him dropped, in exchange for his cooperation with the White House’s anti-immigrant crackdown. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have called for his resignation, and four of his deputy mayors, including his top deputy, have already resigned. Governor Kathy Hochul has been under pressure to use her executive power to remove him as mayor. “We have endured enough scandal, selfishness and embarrassment, all of which distract from the leadership that New Yorkers deserve,” said Speaker Adams, who is not related to the mayor, in her call for his resignation. “This is the opposite of public service.”
PRESSURE ON MAYOR
Mayor Adams, who is determined to keep the Trump administration on his side, has resisted this pressure. However, the pending legal case and the understanding that he has offered himself as a lackey to the reactionary Trump administration have drained him of support and friendship in the halls of power. Activists like those in this coalition hope that this will create an opening to press for a progressive budget agreement by this summer.
Shahana Hanif, a city council member from Brooklyn, voiced hope that the coalition could counter the austerity imposed on the city by both the mayor and his allies in the White House. “We’re fighting against the Adams/Trump agenda,” she said.
