The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America publicly rebuked Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday after the NYPD moved to add roughly 580 uniformed positions this year. The organization says the hires roll back the mayor’s campaign vows to keep headcount steady and warns the expansion will cost the city tens of millions of dollars, while it renews calls to dismantle controversial police units.
According to the New York Daily News, NYC-DSA said the increase would come to about 580 officers and would require at least $70 million in the city budget. The group’s steering committee, the outlet reports, voted unanimously to demand that the mayor eliminate the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group and purge the department’s gang database.
Commissioner Jessica Tisch disclosed the department’s new authorized headcount at a City Council budget hearing on Monday, saying the FY27 budgeted uniform headcount will be 35,555, an increase of 580 positions, and laying out a roughly $6.59 billion NYPD budget, according to the City Council transcript. Officials said the new positions are expected to be phased in through academy classes this year as patrol strength continues to climb.
Mayor Mamdani defended the decision in an interview on WNYC, saying he had been told the Bronx operated with only one patrol borough and that splitting it into two, along with expanding regular in-service training, made a modest headcount increase necessary, per the Mayor's Office transcript. He cast the change as operational rather than ideological and said officials would try to staff the new shifts through academy intakes.
Why DSA objects
NYC-DSA leaders say the hires undercut the promises that persuaded many progressives to back Mamdani in the first place, and they argue the city should instead steer money into community responses and social services. Gustavo Gordillo, a DSA co-chair, told the New York Daily News the move “reverses a campaign promise” and risks alienating the mayor’s base.
Numbers and the budget
The City Council hearing laid out the arithmetic: the NYPD's FY27 executive budget is roughly $6.59 billion, and the department expects to have the new budgeted headcount in place by the end of the year, as shown in the City Council transcript. That calculus of hiring waves, academy costs and potential overtime tradeoffs is exactly where advocates say policy priorities are going to collide with municipal finance reality.
Political fallout
The dispute sharpens a broader tension between Mamdani and the activist groups that helped elect him. The Democratic Socialists of America has pressed for aggressive reforms and a model of “co-governance” that promises continued outside pressure on the mayor. City & State has documented how the DSA seeks to turn electoral wins into concrete policy leverage, a dynamic that now squarely includes policing decisions.
Council members and community groups are set to watch the executive budget process closely as officials finalize spending for the new fiscal year. The coming weeks of hearings and amendments will show whether the mayor and his allies can line up campaign promises with the operational demands the NYPD says it faces. For now, the split is one more reminder that in New York City politics, few issues ignite faster than policing.
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