City Hall is bracing for a marathon grilling on Wednesday, March 18, as the New York City Council's Committee on Public Safety dives into a preliminary budget hearing that could shape the future of policing and community safety citywide. On the hot seat: the NYPD, the city’s district attorneys, the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, all set to defend their plans as negotiations over the FY27 budget get underway in earnest.
LIVE: The Committee on Public Safety's Preliminary Budget Hearing https://t.co/bs7Caacbuw
— New York City Council (@NYCCouncil) March 18, 2026
What's On The Docket
According to the printed agenda, the NYPD will kick off testimony at 9:30 a.m., followed by the city’s district attorneys and the Special Narcotics Prosecutor at 12:30 p.m., the Civilian Complaint Review Board at 2 p.m., and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice at 3:30 p.m. Public testimony is slated for 4:30 p.m. The hearing, chaired by Council Member Oswald J. Feliz, will unfold in the Council Chambers at City Hall, per the New York City Council.
Why This Hearing Matters
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preliminary FY27 plan, released in February, keeps the NYPD’s operating budget largely unchanged while leaving his signature Department of Community Safety unfunded in the initial proposal. That omission puts a lot of pressure on City Hall to explain how the administration plans to deliver on its own public safety branding without money behind it.
The administration’s own transcript shows the mayor scaled back earlier plans to expand sworn headcount and shifted several items into placeholders that the Council may now push to fill, as documented in the Mayor's Office.
What Council Members Will Ask
Council members are expected to home in on some familiar pressure points: overtime, staffing, surveillance and technology contracts, and the city’s plan for community based responses to 911 calls.
The Comptroller’s analysis notes that NYPD overtime has been chronically underbudgeted and projects uniformed overtime needs that could run hundreds of millions of dollars above what is currently penciled into the FY27 plan. That gap is likely to draw pointed questions from the dais, per the Office of the New York City Comptroller.
How To Watch And Weigh In
The Council is streaming budget hearings and posting agency materials on its online budget hub, with the committee’s social channels sharing the live link earlier in the day. Members of the public who signed up to speak will get their turn at the 4:30 p.m. public session, and written testimony can be submitted through the Council’s budget page, which also houses hearing records and documents.
This preliminary session serves as an early battleground in weeks of negotiations that will shape the city’s final spending plan, which the Council must adopt by late June. This story will be updated as testimony lands, agency responses are posted and council members press the administration on any gaps that surface at today’s hearing.
