SUMMER OF HELL: The NYPD has quite a summer ahead, to hear Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch tell it.
During a four-hour budget hearing this morning (and afternoon), the mayor’s top cop provided new insight into possible threats during the World Cup, hinted at the beef between the police department and the mayor’s office over the scale of celebrations in New York City and ballparked how much police overtime will cost when America’s 250th birthday festivities, the NBA Finals, a large sailing event and annual parades are taken into account.
“Any one of those events on its own would be a major operation in New York City,” Tisch told members of the City Council’s finance and public safety committees. “Taken together, they place extraordinary demands on the NYPD.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has already announced five fan zones where New Yorkers can catch World Cup games for free. Tisch said Monday there would be more.
“My understanding is that the mayor is going to announce a very robust set of watch parties for FIFA around the whole five boroughs, which will run the length of the tournament,” she said.
Yet behind the scenes, as POLITICO has reported, police brass have chafed at the scale of watch parties desired by the mayor, an avid fan, who wants to host novel get-togethers like soccer on the beach. Some of those tensions appeared to seep through Tisch’s comments Monday as she ticked off all the ways the NYPD will be taxed in the coming months.
“I would appreciate it if you could think about the demands on this department in that context,” she said, stressing to lawmakers the NYPD has limited resources. “We would like to facilitate a lot, perhaps we will be able to facilitate everything — but there will be a lot of celebrating in New York City.”
Tisch and her team tried to paint a picture of the scale of the tasks at hand: The department will screen 200 buses arriving from New Jersey on eight days when games are being played at MetLife Stadium. Officers will also secure the staging areas in Midtown where passengers will board those buses before being ferried back across the Hudson River. The NYPD plans to screen an estimated 15,000 rail passengers before they take a train to the Garden State as well.
Tisch has previously expressed her fears about weaponized drones that could be used to launch attacks during the tournament. On Monday, she turned to a more grounded example of why the NYPD needs to be involved in planning.
“We don’t want cars driving into these watch parties, either on purpose or by accident,” she said. “We don’t want to see vehicle ramming attacks across the city.”
All told, Tisch and her team said overtime costs associated with the summer will run approximately $92 million. Officers will be put on mandatory 12-hour shifts from July 1 through July 7, as POLITICO has reported, a run Tisch said Monday may need to be expanded. Around $70 million of that cost is either already accounted for in the city’s budget or is being picked up by the feds, leaving a roughly $20 million shortfall at a time when the city has little money to spare. — Joe Anuta
From the Capitol
SLOP THERE IT IS: Just in time for NBA Finals, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Republican foes are gleefully casting themselves as ballers in AI-produced videos and images dunking on the hapless Democrat.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott today posted a photo on X of the Lone Star Republican in a San Antonio Spurs jersey scoring off Hochul kitted out as a Knick. President Donald Trump sitting courtside smiles along in approval.
This follows a video by Hochul’s general election opponent Bruce Blakeman dribbling circles around Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (In this iteration, Blakeman is on the Knicks and the New York Democrats are on the Cleveland Cavaliers.)
Hochul — a Buffalo native who appears to be much more of a Bills and Sabres fan — scoffed at the Abbott photo this morning, making a reference to controversies over trans people participating in sports.
“I was actually surprised to see the president and Governor Abbott — with their memes of me, they’re dunking me on the court — that they’re supportive of men and women competing in the same sport,” she said. — Nick Reisman
THE KIDS ARE ALERT: Students are learning more and scrolling less thanks to a statewide cellphone ban, according to research released today by the governor.
Roughly 80 percent of teachers across the state said in a survey that the ban, which went into effect this school year, has resulted in positive outcomes, including better student engagement. Another 60 percent reported a decline in bullying and cyberbullying incidents. And 75 percent said their ability to teach effectively improved.
Hochul, who attended a roundtable discussion with students and teachers at a Brooklyn school today, said she first sought to determine what was causing youth mental health issues more than a year ago.
“I quickly came to the conclusion that there were severely negative impacts on young people’s mental health in classrooms when they could not put down their cellphones,” she said. “Literally, it became an addiction.”
The governor’s office received 585 responses to the survey. Forty-seven percent of the educators polled were from New York City, according to Hochul.
It remains to be seen though whether the policy will have an impact on students’ academic performance.
“Logic would tell us that that is a result we expect to see at some point,” Hochul told reporters after the roundtable. “I don’t know that it follows at the end of any first year, but it is data I’ve asked for. We don’t have the final exams in, for example.” — Madina Touré
FROM CITY HALL
CLASS SIZE DELAY CEMENTED: Mamdani is set to receive two more years to comply with a state law mandating lower class sizes in public schools.
The legislation to allow for that would revise the benchmark for the upcoming school year from 80 percent to 70 percent, according to state Sen. John Liu, who chairs the Senate’s New York City Education Committee.
After that, the city will have to reach 80 percent by the 2027-28 school year, 90 percent by the 2028-29 school year and 100 percent by the 2029-30 school year.
Under the original timeline, the city had to reduce class sizes to between 20 and 25 students, depending on the grade, by September 2028.
“The legal timetable will be extended by two years, empowering the Mamdani administration to at long last bring all NYC class sizes down to state and national norms of teacher-student ratios,” Liu said in a statement. “This amendment to state law is respondent to clear and accountable teacher recruitment and classroom construction plans developed by the Mamdani administration to be fulfilled within the mayor’s current term of office.”
The class size law is a key priority for Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. He said the union preferred compliance over an extension.
“But the reality is that New York City, up until now, had not done all that was needed to make this law a reality in every classroom,” Mulgrew said in a statement. “If giving this new administration two more years gets us a partner committed to building the necessary seats, then it is the fastest way to turn the law into reality.”
The agreement includes an “accountability incentive” that requires the city to treat space and hard-to-staff exemptions — schools that receive money to hire staff but are unable to fill those positions for the fall — as temporary tools.
The city will have to pay teachers a differential when working at schools that received space or hard-to-staff exemptions to meet the 70 percent benchmark for the upcoming school year. — Madina Touré
IN OTHER NEWS
— NO DICE: Resorts World, New York City’s first casino, is in a tax dispute with the state’s Gaming Commission, which claims the casino must pay an additional $150 million annually to the state’s horseracing industry. (New York Focus)
— AT RISK: The Trump administration is proposing to “optimize self-sufficiency” with cuts to the nation’s largest homeless assistance program that could leave thousands of formerly homeless New Yorkers without shelter. (Gothamist)
— BREAKING BREAD: Competing visions for the left are fueling tensions in the open NY-7 Democratic primary, with tribal politics framing the contest between progressive Antonio Reynoso and democratic socialist Claire Valdez. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.