Adams’ budget cuts hit Rikers Island

New York City’s Department of Correction is nixing a longtime program offering people on Rikers Island and in other city jails 90-minute group sessions on everything from emotional regulation to financial literacy.

The news stunned several nonprofits Monday.

“We were completely blindsided,” Ronald Day, vice president of programs for The Fortune Society, told POLITICO.

Day said The Fortune Society served more than 2,000 people last year on Rikers and the floating Bain Center jail barge as part of the program and worked on 1,500 discharge plans for incarcerated people reentering their communities.

Canceling the $17 million-a-year initiative is part of the mandate Mayor Eric Adams gave city agencies in April to cut their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year by 4 percent. The mayor’s budget director cited the cost of the migrant crisis as the main reason.

Department of Correction spokesperson Frank Dwyer said the program saw low attendance for its $17 million cost and the agency plans to assume the nonprofit providers’ responsibilities once their contracts end on June 30. The Adams administration has called the cuts “efficiencies” and insisted the savings won’t affect the staff, programs or people they serve. City Council leaders and advocacy groups are highly skeptical of those claims.

Day, who said DOC Commissioner Louis Molina supports the program, called the administration’s reasoning a “pipe dream.” He said the services help reduce violence within jails and combat recidivism — which means cutting the program could affect a prominent pillar of Adams’ policy platform.

“This is about public safety — not only in the jails, but also when people leave,” Day said.

The Council and the mayor still have to reach an agreement on the budget by the end of next month. Providers said they expect the Board of Correction to address the cuts Tuesday afternoon at its monthly public meeting.

IT’S TUESDAY.

WHERE’S KATHY? In Albany and New York City with no public events scheduled.

WHERE’S ERIC? In New York City, conducting several morning television interviews and delivering remarks at the ribbon cutting to reopen Century 21. He will also make a public safety announcement with Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.