Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Comptroller Mark Levine on Wednesday unveiled a proposed charter amendment that would remake New York City's rainy day fund, setting a target size, a formula-based deposit rule and new limits on withdrawals.
The proposal is aimed at the Reserve Stabilization Fund, the name used for the city's rainy day account. Under the plan, the fund would be steered toward saving up to 10% of city tax revenue, or about $8.44 billion based on roughly $84.4 billion collected, instead of sitting at the $2 billion the Mamdani administration inherited.
That matters now because the city is nearly finished with a budget meant to close a revised $5.7 billion deficit. At the start of 2026, that gap was $12 billion, and the smaller number still leaves little room for error if the city wants a deeper cushion for future shocks. The existing reserve equals about 2% of tax revenue, and backers say that is not enough to protect the budget on its own.
The push also reflects a broader judgment about how the city handles cash: it spends too much and saves too little. The new rules are meant to stop the fund from being raided for unnecessary purposes, which is the kind of protection a simple target number does not provide by itself. A formula-based deposit mechanism would force money into the fund as revenue comes in, so saving would not depend on a later political decision to do it.
Even so, the proposal is still only a proposal. The Charter Commission on Governmental Efficiency must approve the revision, and voters would then have to endorse it in a ballot referendum before it becomes law. That makes the next step less about announcement and more about whether the city is ready to lock its rainy day discipline into the charter itself.
