Why Mamdani is pulling back on rental aid and class size cuts

Mayor Zohran Mamdani's NYC budget was released earlier this week, totaling $124.7 billion.

It was delivered with a celebratory tone for the first-year mayor in erasing a massive funding gap.

But it came at the cost of easing back on some promises on rental aid and class sizes.

Mamdani's stance on a city rental assistance program

While campaigning for mayor, Mamdani said he wanted to continue expanding New York's homeless program, the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement. Reports indicate the program's cost has ballooned from $25 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion in 2025.

Mamdani said he would "ensure expansion proceeds as scheduled and per City Law."

But the mayor's budget reveal said that the city was working to "stabilize the CityFHEPS program for the long term," and save about $519 million in the budget.

It's going to mean slower growth and efforts to move voucher holders off of long-term support, the administration says.

Mayor's stance on class-size requirements

Mamdani's budget also slows down the timeline for getting classroom sizes down to a state mandate while the city works to hire 1,000 new teachers, costing $122 million.

“Make no mistake: We are fully committed to fulfilling the state mandate in a meaningful way on a realistic timeline that New Yorkers can actually trust.”

On his campaign website, it said that Mamdani planned to "ensure our public schools are fully funded with equally distributed resources, strong after-school programs, mental health counselors and nurses, compliant and effective class sizes, and integrated student bodies."