Brooklyn Borough President Challenges City Health Funding Cuts

NEW YORK — Dec. 2, 2025 — Brooklyn’s elected borough president on Tuesday threatened legal action after the municipal executive budget proposed deep cuts to community clinic funding that borough officials and neighborhood advocates say will cripple primary care in parts of the borough that already lag the city on health outcomes, from East New York to Sunset Park and Brownsville to Flatbush.

City officials submitted the budget proposal last week that trims allocations to the Brooklyn Community Health Access Fund, a block of discretionary city money used to shore up independent clinics and mobile health units that serve uninsured and Medicaid patients in low-income sections of the borough. The cuts, the borough president’s office said, came with little warning and without the consultations required under local equity ordinances, prompting a public rebuke during a morning briefing at Borough Hall near the Atlantic Avenue courthouse complex.

“These clinics are not line items to be gambled with,” said Ariella Cortez, the borough president, during the briefing, flanked by clinic directors and community leaders. “When Albany or City Hall argues about balance sheets, our neighborhoods count the human cost — missed diabetes care, delayed prenatal visits, shuttered mental health counseling. We will use every tool at our disposal, including litigation, to restore this funding.”

The numbers driving the dispute were spelled out in a borough-commissioned analysis released alongside the press conference: the executive budget cuts $14.2 million from Brooklyn clinic allocations for fiscal year 2026, a 47 percent reduction from last year’s $30 million baseline; the borough estimates 23 community clinics and four mobile units would lose core operating grants, potentially disrupting roughly 120,000 patient visits annually across southern Crown Heights, Ocean Hill, Sunset Park and Sheepshead Bay. Borough Hall is seeking full restoration of $16 million it says would be required to sustain current services through June 2026.

Clinic directors at the press event described immediate operational threats if money is not restored. “We are talking about closing a wing of our clinic on Fulton Street that provides same-day urgent care and chronic-disease management,” said Daniela Ruiz, executive director of Sunrise Community Health on Fulton Street, who added that staff already have started contingency planning and potential layoffs. “There is nowhere nearby that can absorb these patients without long wait times and worse outcomes.”

Legal options were laid out by the borough president’s counsel as the next step if negotiations with the mayor’s budget office do not produce a restoration. “We have a statutory obligation to protect public health in our borough and an obligation under city equity policies to consult affected communities before making programmatic reductions,” said Marcus Liang, general counsel to the Brooklyn borough president. “We are prepared to file a suit in state supreme court to compel adherence to those processes and to seek an injunction if closures become imminent.”

A spokesperson for the city’s Office of Management and Budget, Elena Park, responded that the administration faces constrained revenues and must make difficult choices across dozens of municipal programs. “We value the work of community clinics and will continue to fund essential services,” she said in an email. “That said, preliminary adjustments in the executive budget reflect the fiscal environment and will be refined during negotiations with borough offices and the City Council.” A senior Health Department planner who requested anonymity added that program reconfigurations were being considered to prioritize high-impact services while minimizing outright closures.

On the ground in East New York, residents said the proposed cuts would be felt immediately at the busy community site on Pennsylvania Avenue. “My mother goes there for blood pressure meds every month,” said Tyrone Jenkins, 62, a retired MTA worker who lives a block from the clinic. “If they close or cut hours, she’ll miss doses. That’s dangerous.” The borough president’s office said more than 250 residents packed a town hall at a Sunset Park senior center last week; community organizers staged a rally outside Atlantic Terminal on Monday that drew roughly 300 people and a caravan of vans from affected clinics.

Policy analysts said the clash reflects a longer-running tension between mayoral control of the budget and borough-level advocacy over discretionary dollars. “The borough presidents have limited formal budget authority, but they can use political and legal pressure to influence allocations,” said Maya Grant, a municipal finance analyst at the Center for City Policy. “This dispute could set a precedent: if the borough president succeeds, other boroughs may press for restored community health funding during the final budget negotiations.”

For now, the fight will move to a sequence of procedural deadlines: the borough president’s office said it would file a notice of claim by the end of the week and seek expedited review if necessary, while City Hall prepares to negotiate with the City Council before the budget adoption later this month. Either way, leaders on both sides said the stakes go beyond dollars, shaping whether community-based clinics — the first line of care for thousands of Brooklynites — survive the next fiscal year and how municipal power is exercised over health equity investments.