Desperate Andrew Cuomo is pitching hundreds of millions worth of plans for the city if elected mayor, including a public safety proposal that targets hiring 5,000 more cops — but the ex-gov offered few details on how he plans to pay for it.
The independent mayoral hopeful, who is struggling to gain traction in the race for the Big Apple, announced a pie in the sky public safety plan last week that calls for a surge of 5,000 new cop hires – bolstered by $15,000 sign-on bonuses, additional retention incentives and the creation of a city-funded scholarship program offering tuition reimbursement at CUNY and SUNY schools.
The Cuomo camp believes the police perks will run an estimated $250 million over five years — but offered no specifics on the college credit program cost.
The lean projections were refuted by budget experts, however, who told The Post that adding 5,000 to the NYPD rank and file would cost around $417 million — in salaries alone.
Cuomo insisted, in an interview with The Post, that he would be able to find the funds by slashing overtime and trimming the fat from the city’s roughly $116 billion budget.
“Increased headcount will lead to no more overtime,” he said, later adding he would only cut overtime in half.
Cuomo pointed to his success as governor when he quickly closed a $10 billion state budget gap in Albany as proof that he could do the same thing in City Hall.
“There are a lot of redundancies,” Cuomo said about the city’s 2026 budget. “I think it is safe to say we can find $3 billion.”
The ex-gov said he’s only proposing about $1 billion in new city spending, if he wins in November.
The NYPD spent around $955 million in 2024 on overtime, according to the Independent Budget Office. And overtime costs have been rising steadily for years – in 2019 the overtime budget hovered around $600 million.
“The overtime budget is high because the headcount is so low,” Cuomo said.
Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post’s signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here!
The current headcount for the NYPD, the largest police department in the US, is around 34,000 officers – the lowest it’s been in decades.
But Ken Frydman, a longtime police union consultant, poured cold water on the need to boost the numbers of New York’s Finest.
“Its not realistic. We don’t need 5,000 more cops – at least not now,” he said.
Frydman also emphasized that boosting cops’ wages could lead to other uniformed agencies, like FDNY or DSNY, pushing for bumps — leading to an increasing strain on the Big Apple’s already-bloated budget.
BIll Cunningham, a veteran political operative, said Cuomo’s lack of specifics are reminiscent of proposals pitched by mayoral frontrunner, champagne socialist Zohran Mamdani who routed Cuomo in a Democratic primary in June.
“Don’t worry about the details, it’s like the ‘Wizard of Oz,’” Cunningham said about the political rivals.
“They’re going to go behind the curtain and announce their policies but not delve into the specifics.”
Cuomo’s plan also pitches pay increases — the amount remains unclear — for cops who complete “specialized community policing, language, or mental health crisis training.”
Read the full article here
