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New York Politics

NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams pushes back on

Mayor Adams’ remarks on NYPD overtime
By Michael Gartland
New York Daily News • Apr 27, 2023 at 2:06 pm

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams slammed Mayor Adams on Thursday over the
mayor’s attack against critics of NYPD overtime spending, saying Adams is driving
“harmful narratives” with his words.

Williams accused the mayor of wrongly taking an “us vs. them” approach to the
overtime issue, saying Adams has created “a false binary to marginalize and villainize
legitimate criticism.”

“We see this tactic of unnecessary ‘us vs. them’ over and over,” Williams said in a
statement. “This model only serves to drive harmful narratives that echo throughout
our city and beyond. If one perpetuates falsehoods loudly and often enough,
constituents and voters are bound to believe you. It’s proven an effective way to prevent
progress or reform that this mayor opposes.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News)

Williams took umbrage with an apparently unscripted digression Adams made

Wednesday right after he unveiled his $106.7 billion executive budget proposal . LATEST
New York
In his comments, the mayor laid into unnamed City Council members who he said have
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railed against spending on police overtime, suggesting those critics are “anti-police.” three-year-old in third-rail
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Adams — without prompting — brought up conversations he had had with Council
7m
members he didn’t name about police overtime spending .

New York
“I said, ‘Is it that you dislike overtime, or you dislike the NYPD?’ Because I never hear
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them talking about overtime in any of the other agencies. In all the agencies, I have are unaffordable to
median-income New
overtime,” said Adams, who retired from the NYPD as a captain. Yorkers, study finds
22m
“But no one gets riled up with overtime in Parks, in HRA [the Human Resources
Administration]. Nobody gets riled up in overtime anywhere else but the New York City NYC Crime
Police Department,” he said. NYC Council weighing bill
to allow city jails watchdog
easier access to Rikers
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video
31m

Mayor Eric Adams (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

“That’s all we focus on — NYPD,” Adams said. “So is it anti-overtime? Or is it anti-

And if it’s anti-police, shame on us.”

Adams didn’t mention that NYPD overtime costs are far higher than overtime in other
city agencies. In fiscal year 2022, uniformed officers cost the city $670 million in
overtime — nearly double the $354 million allocated for police overtime in that year’s
adopted budget.

Nonuniformed agencies typically spend far less, with the Department of Social Services
racking up the highest cost among them at $85.2 million for OT in 2022 and the Parks
Department spending about $30 million.

While he was running for mayor, Adams also called for NYPD overtime spending to be
scaled back .

(Shutterstock)

“Concern over the NYPD overtime is rooted in the reality that the agency is insulated
from the constraints that other agencies face, including other uniformed workers,”
Williams said. “The NYPD operates without these constraints on its budget or
accountability for even deadly errors. It’s not anti-police to say the NYPD should be
held to higher standards — if this administration can’t see that, that’s a shame.”

In a press conference at City Hall later Thursday, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams
joined the public advocate in denouncing the mayor’s comments about NYPD’s
overtime spending.

“The NYPD consistently blows past its budgeted amount for overtime cost, in the
hundreds of millions, in the way that no other city agency does,” the speaker said. “We
care about responsible budgeting, and the fiscal health of our city, and allowing an
agency’s overtime spending to routinely go beyond its budgeted amount year after year
is not responsible budgeting.”

Mayor Adams and Williams are by no means allies, but they aren’t necessarily enemies
either.

Williams, who’s far more left-leaning than Adams, launched his latest attack against the
mayor a week after Adams praised the public advocate for traveling to Washington to
highlight the city’s need for federal assistance with the migrant crisis , which the city has
struggled with since last spring.

In a broadside directed at President Biden last Wednesday , Adams singled out Williams
with plaudits for his trip to D.C., saying at the time that “everyone should be joining
Jumaane Williams.”

But since then, Williams has hit Adams on three fronts.

Immigrants arrive on a bus from Texas at the Port Authority on September. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Aside from his words Thursday on police overtime, last week Williams voiced dismay
over remarks Adams made during his own sojourn to Washington on Friday where he
proclaimed that “the city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.” Williams pushed
back later that day, saying “the city has not been destroyed by migrants.”

Williams also threw some shade Hizzoner’s way Wednesday, immediately after Adams
announced his budget, a spending plan that progressive critics have pounced on as too
reliant on austerity measures.

“Our city has faced fiscal hardship many times in our history, and the prudent path has
been investment, then and now,” he said. “Not funding agencies and programs
adequately, or worse, cutting them, has a real cost.”

With Chris Sommerfeldt

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