New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced funding to hire 5,000 new NYPD officers over the next three years. 

The announcement comes just days before New Yorkers will elect their next mayor, which will not be Adams. 

The issue of NYPD headcount has been hotly contested in the mayoral campaign, which has seen nearly 400,000 people cast ballots in early voting, so far. 

Adams approves $300 million to hire NYPD officers 

With early voting well underway, Adams on Friday said he approved more than $300 million to hire the new officers, which will bring the department to its highest level in decades. 

"The vast majority of New Yorkers want more police officers on their streets and in the subways," Adams said in a statement. "Now, New York City will be on a path to reach 40,000 police officers in the next three years — the highest number of police officers in 20 years." 

However, since the officers would not start being hired until 2026, the next mayor could simply eliminate the funding from the budget. 

"If the next mayor wants to defund the police, there is not much we can do. All we can do is make every day count to make sure New York City is best equipped for the future," a spokesperson for Adams said.   

A swipe at Mamdani

The mayor's lame-duck budget proposal was clearly a pre-emptive strike against Democrat Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner to win Tuesday's election, who does not want to increase the size of the NYPD. Three recent polls showed him carrying a commanding lead with likely voters, but another poll had independent Andrew Cuomo closing the gap.

Mamdani wants to keep the NYPD at its current budgeted head count of 35,000 and have a civilian Department of Community Safety to deal with things like homelessness and domestic violence cases.

Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, however, are campaigning on hiring thousands of new officers - the former governor wants to add 5,000, and Sliwa wants 7,000.   

Mamdani said the announcement showed the mayor was interested "far more in the theater of the politics around this race."

"Eric Adams cannot actually hire enough officers that he actually has the money to do so," he said, with the NYPD down to 33,740 in August.

Cuomo, who the mayor endorsed in the three-man race, praised the budget announcement and used it to take a swipe at Mamdani.

"Mamdani has said he's defunding the police a hundred times. He's said it a hundred times," the former governor said. 

Sliwa, during an appearance on "The Point," resorted to sarcasm. 

"Great. Great. Nachas to you, Eric Adams, for finally waking up and not going to a club to the break of dawn and wanting to hire cops. But this is the problem, retention and recruitment," Sliwa said. 

This marked the third time in recent weeks the mayor has taken action he thinks will hurt Mamdani's chances and help get Cuomo elected. Yesterday, he gave a speech on antisemitism that appeared to rebuke Mamdani. He also said he wanted to make new appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board, including people who are not expected to look favorably on Mamdani's plan to freeze rents. 

Over the summer, the mayor and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch swore in 1,100 police officer recruits, the largest class since January 2016, according to Adams' office. So far in 2025, the NYPD has hired 2,911 officers, the most since 2006, the mayor's office said. 

All three candidates said they would like Tisch to remain police commissioner in their administration during their final debate.