A senior New York City lawmaker is raising concerns that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision not to expand the New York Police Department’s ranks could jeopardize public safety at a time when the department is already facing staffing challenges, as reported by The New York Post.

Oswald Feliz (D-Bronx), who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, criticized Mamdani’s move to halt plans to add 5,000 officers to the NYPD.

The hiring freeze comes as the department is “already facing unprecedented officer shortages,” Feliz told The Post on Sunday.

“This is not good,” he said. “Cutting police hiring will exacerbate problems related to excessive overtime, slow response times, and crime.”

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Last week, Mamdani unveiled a preliminary $127 billion budget that reversed a staffing expansion plan proposed by his predecessor, Eric Adams.

Under Adams’ proposal, the NYPD’s headcount would have increased to 40,000 officers — a level not seen in decades.

Mamdani’s administration instead plans to cap the force at 35,000 officers, consistent with his campaign pledge to freeze hiring above that threshold.

Mamdani has proposed creating a new agency, the Department of Community Safety, to respond to mental health calls. The mayor has said the initiative would allow law enforcement officers to focus more directly on crime-fighting.

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However, questions remain about how the new department would operate and how it would be funded. Although Mamdani has said the department would cost $1 billion, the preliminary budget did not allocate funding for the agency.

“Public safety must continue to be a top priority,” Feliz said.

“NYC has made progress on the issue of public safety, including record-low shootings, and we must work to preserve that progress,” he added.

“Moving forward with the hiring of new officers will ensure police precincts have the tools to decrease crime and resolve complex challenges related to the safety of New Yorkers.”

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Council Speaker Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) echoed those concerns during a Fox 5 appearance, saying lawmakers are closely monitoring crime statistics.

“We do want to make sure that the NYPD has the proper resources,” Menin said. “We’ve got the same number of officers basically that we had on 9/11, yet the city has grown substantially.”

The issue has drawn bipartisan reaction. Councilman Frank Morano (R-Staten Island) also criticized the decision to halt additional hiring, calling it the “wrong decision at the wrong time.”

“When you weaken your police force, everything else suffers,” Morano said.

The NYPD had nearly 38,000 officers in 2019. That number declined in the years that followed as large numbers of officers retired and the department struggled with recruitment during a period marked by anti-police sentiment.

In response to concerns about staffing levels, a spokesperson for the Mamdani administration declined to address the warnings directly and instead pointed to the mayor’s remarks at a Thursday press conference.

Image Credit: Ron Adar - Shutterstock.com
New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani speaks in a Malikah's Iftar Ramadan event at the Museum of the Moving Image on March 07, 2025 in the Queens Borough of New York City.

“We’ve seen an issue with retention in our department over the last few years, and I have said time and again that for too long, the city has added additional responsibilities onto the NYPD,” Mamdani said.

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“We see, at this point, the NYPD responsible for responding to about 200,000 mental health calls a year, and part of our vision in establish a Department of Community Safety is to start to take that responsibility of mental health crises and task mental health responders with that work, and to ensure that police can focus on the work that they signed up to focus on, which is tackling violent crime across the city.”

As debate continues over the city’s budget and public safety strategy, the question of police staffing levels remains central to discussions among city leaders.

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