Testifying in front of the City Council at a Monday morning budget hearing, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that she is moving the police department in the opposite direction of the initiatives that Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a year ago.
Mamdani promised to curb NYPD overtime, but under Tisch, it's exploding.
Mamdani's initial budget had held the NYPD's headcount roughly flat. Tisch said Monday he's actually hiring 580 new officers this year.
And on Mamdani's signature criminal justice reform initiative—the Office of Community Safety that he created earlier this year—Tisch basically said she hasn't has any discussions about how the new office will affect the NYPD's responsibilities—and that to her knowledge, it won't.
At the hearing, Commissioner Tisch told City Council Speaker Julie Menin that she hasn't spoken to Mamdani about the OCS, which the Mayor has touted as an initiative to improve public safety, particularly with regard to people in the midst of a mental health crisis, by providing a response by trained social workers rather than armed officers.
"Those conversations have not yet commenced," Tisch told Council Speaker Julie Menin.