NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a $114.5 billion city budget proposal Thursday that largely averts spending cuts and provides several new funding streams, including for expanding the homeless shelter system.

Besides shelters, the preliminary budget bid, which marks the start of Adams’ spending negotiations with the City Council, includes new funding for initiatives in major areas like education, parks and mental health.

There are still some high-profile cuts in the plan, including a lack of full funding for the CityFHEPS rental assistance program and a $192 million trim to the city’s free 3-K and pre-K childhood education initiatives — proposals Council Democrats quickly balked at.

Adams’ latest plan does stand out from his previous ones in that it doesn’t direct agencies to enact major cuts across the board.

In previous fiscal year plans, Adams — who’s running for reelection against a sprawling field of challengers in June’s Democratic mayoral primary — enacted deep and unpopular cuts to various agencies, including libraries, only to reverse many following outcry from Council members and the public.

In a news conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, Adams suggested he’s able to avert cuts this time around thanks to a $2.4 billion drop in projected migrant crisis spending, as the number of asylum seekers living in city shelters is now below 50,000, down from a high of 69,000.

He also cited better-than-expected tax revenues and predicted this spring’s negotiations with the Council will be “good” as they look to reach a budget deal before the July 1 start of the 2026 fiscal year.

Still, Adams said there’s uncertainty on the horizon in that President-elect Donald Trump’s about to return to the White House. The Queens-born Republican has threatened as president to withhold funds from his native city, which receives $8 billion in federal support each year.

“We must remain vigilant and carefully monitor the effects of the new administration’s actions,” Adams said of Trump, who has recently been supportive of the Democratic mayor and even openly entertained pardoning him over his federal corruption indictment.

Asked whether he’d scale back some city spending in the event of Trump cuts, Adams demurred, saying: “I’m not going to assume anything.”

One of the biggest new investments contained in Adams’ latest proposal is a $554 million infusion into expanding the city’s shelter system because of an increase in the city’s non-migrant homeless shelter population. Since Adams took office in 2022, homelessness among long-term New Yorkers has surged by 20%, as rents and other costs of living remain stubbornly high, according to a study from the Coalition for the Homeless.

Adams said the growing shelter census is in part the result of an “extraordinary number” of homeless people coming to the city from other states, though he didn’t have any data to share on that point.

“Everyone is coming to New York,” Adams said.

The budget bid contains another $137 million that’d be spent in the next fiscal year on helping homeless individuals suffering from mental illness — an issue that has become especially pressing amid a spate of random violent attacks in the subway system. That includes bankrolling “Bridge to Home,” a new pilot program he announced earlier this week that would seek to provide severely mentally ill homeless individuals with temporary housing, psychiatric counseling and substance abuse treatment.

On other fronts, Adams is proposing spending $4.35 million on “financial literacy” programs in public schools and earmarking $12.4 million in new funding for cleaning 100 “hot spots” across 64 city parks. He’s also floating $924,000 in new investments to hire 12 more Parks Department staffers to do about 4,000 tree cleanings per year to help drive down rat populations.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Council Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan, who lead their chamber’s budget negotiating team, noted those investments don’t fully reverse a $20 million cut to the city Parks Department the mayor pushed through last year. The top Council Dems criticized a lack of funds for education and rental assistance programs, too.

“There are still investments missing from major city priorities,” they said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters after the mayor’s budget speech, Brannan was especially perplexed by the 3-K and pre-K cuts, which include a $55 million shave to special education classes for kids younger than 5.

“Seeing that this preliminary budget is silent on investing in 3-K is just, it’s crazy,” said Brannan. “I mean, I don’t know if they forgot to put it in the document, but how do you not invest in 3-K? It’s a proven program.”

At many other major agencies, funding would remain effectively flat under Adams’ new plan, including at the NYPD, which would receive $5.8 billion in the next fiscal year under the proposal.

Jacques Jiha, the mayor’s budget director, initially said Thursday the NYPD will earmark about $900 million for overtime spending in the 2026 fiscal year. But in a later briefing with reporters, City Hall budget officials said Jiha misspoke and that the actual figure is roughly $686 million.

The NYPD has long faced criticism for low-balling their overtime budgets and then blowing past them by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. This fiscal year, the NYPD has spent more than $1 billion on overtime — a figure that has attracted much scrutiny in the wake of a scandal over allegations that ex-Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey pressured a subordinate for sex in exchange for exorbitant OT.

The mayor, who has centered his reelection bid on public safety, suggested NYPD OT has mostly been used for unexpected events like large-scale protests. He wouldn’t commit that the NYPD will stay on budget when it comes to OT in the next fiscal year.

“No, here’s the commitment, here’s the commitment: The commitment is to keep New Yorkers safe,” he said.

That comment drew a rebuke from Andrew Rein, president of the fiscally hawkish Citizens Budget Commission, who has long lamented that Adams’ administration is underestimating spending across various agencies.

“The administration should break its severe underbudgeting habit and provide credible spending estimates,” he said. “New Yorkers deserve a clear picture of the city’s finances, including overtime, housing vouchers, and homeless shelters.”

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