On Friday June 10th, Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams shook hands to announce a deal on the City’s fiscal year 2023 Budget. Coming in at a historic $101 billion, the budget is about $2.3 Billion dollars more than the previous year. Despite this historic level of investment in City programs, many advocates were disappointed to see low investments in affordable housing and homeless services along with cuts to school budgets totaling $215 million while the NYPD received a $140M increase to their already enormous $10 Billion budget. It is still to be determined whether or not these cuts will impact nutrition education or school garden programs at individual schools. In response, six progressive members of the City Council voted against the budget.
Food Systems Initiatives Funded in the New York City FY23 Adopted Budget
While those cuts to education, housing and homeless services are a disappointment to many New Yorkers, one silver lining in the budget is the inclusion of significant investments in human services and food systems initiatives. In total, the final budget deal contained $306 Million for programs in the budget that Equity Advocates advocated for in partnership with the NYC Food Policy Alliance, including:
$79.4 million baselined to expand the Summer Youth Employment Program to 100K slots
$60 million to increase salaries for human service workers
$30 million increase for the DSS Community Food Connections, formerly known as Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP), and a change in the program to now include fresh produce for emergency food providers. Total program budget is now $52 million.
$50 million in capital funds for the student friendly cafeteria redesign and enhancement prioritized by our friends at Community Food Advocates at another 100 middle and high school cafeterias in high needs neighborhoods identified by the City’s Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity.
$19.7 million to double the slots for the Work Learn Grow program to 4,400 jobs
$15 Million for home delivered meals for seniors, including $6.2m for the case management to help transition away from COVID Recovery Meals.
$14M was added to Human Resource Administration’s FY23 budget for a new project to increase benefits enrollment, including media and contracting with CBOs for outreach and education.
$10 Million for the new Grocery to Go program administered by the Department of Health in partnership with Mercado which provides a monthly stipend to individuals for groceries that were receiving food through the COVID-19 Get Food Program, are 59 and below, and still need food assistance
$3.5 million for Organics Drop-Off Sites and $9.2 million to enhance the School Organic Waste Collection Program
$2.6 million to support Green Thumb Gardens
$1.5 Million for Community Land Trusts at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development
$1 Million for expansion of and additional staff for the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, including $500,000 for Good Food Purchasing Program contracts.
$250,000 in renewed funding for the Food Ed Hub
Looking ahead, we are eager to work with the Adams Administration to ensure that the investments announced in this budget are successfully implemented and administered with the input of experts within the food nonprofit community. We also look forward to working with leadership at the City level to see that discretionary funding is directed towards communities of color that have been hit the hardest by the economic, hunger and health crises exacerbated by COVID-19.