Heads up, taxpayers!
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has launched a new City Hall communications division, and it’s costing taxpayers a whopping $5.2 million in salaries—an astonishing 175% increase from initial projections, The Post has discovered.
Despite being operational for just a month, the Office of Mass Engagement has already expanded its workforce by 186%, growing from 14 to 40 employees. The city’s newly unveiled 2027 executive budget allocates $5,123,756 for their salaries.
This funding surpasses the entire budgets of several city agencies, including the Board of Corrections, Community Affairs Unit, and the Office for People with Disabilities.
In an exclusive March report, The Post revealed the agency had begun filling 14 lucrative positions, collectively costing taxpayers around $1.6 million. Among these roles was a $150,000 campaign director, whose responsibilities closely resemble those of a political campaign staffer.
Mayor Mamdani plans to add 26 more team members by next year, with each receiving an average salary of $125,000, according to the budget specifics.
Another $30,000 is being set asides for non-staff expenses, new docs reveal.
“This is purely politics at a time when real services are needed,” Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told The Post. “We have real deficits and this mayor is spending five million dollars to put 40 political operatives on the payroll. It’s morally incomprehensible . . . It’s outrageous.”
“This isn’t for anybody’s benefit but the mayor’s.”
The purported purpose of the office is to get New Yorkers involved in policy making, but critics have slammed the move as classic Soviet-era politics — using taxpayer dough to stifle opposition to his agenda.
The budget didn’t reveal the 40 job descriptions. Those hired so far include Commissioner Tascha Van Auken, Mamdani’s campaign field director, and Mohamed Alharbi, the office’s deputy borough director for Queens.
Workers in the Office of Mass Engagement come on top of the mayor’s own communications team, which is expected to be larger than that of any other mayor in Big Apple history, sources said.
Mamdani has budgeted $51.8 million for the mayor’s office in 2027, an increase of $7 million from former Mayor Eric Adam’s budget last year.
When he announced its creation, Mamdani claimed the new office would get marginalized communities involved in city government. But so far it’s catered to the mostly white and wealthy DSA base who put him in office.
This week, three workers were seen by The Post canvassing the Lower East side to get people to turn up to Rent Guideline Board hearings, ahead of its June vote whether to green light the rent-freeze Mamdani campaigned on, which would impact the 2 million residents of the city’s rent-stabilized apartments.
It’s part of the office’s first mission, dubbed Organize NYC, recruiting volunteers and doorknocking, using tactics reminiscent of the DSA, which won him the election
Workers have been canvassing since early May in parts of the Bronx, Queens, lower and upper Manhattan and Brooklyn, but not on Staten Island — though a city spokesperson assured The Post a borough representative had been hired and the city’s only Republican stronghold wouldn’t be left out.
The office’s other roles so far have included a $150,000 deputy director of co-governance, that had language in the job posting that was almost identical to what NYC DSA co-chair Grace Mausser called for in her manifesto last year, “Building Municipal Socialism in New York with DSA.”
The new office also drew comparisons to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who churned out more than 250 promotional videos in his first two years in office.
A City Hall rep told The Post that the office has also made outreach to landlord advocacy groups to testify at the hearings, and claimed the office will not advocate for any specific outcome.
“Every New Yorker should have a say in the future of their city,” said Penelope Birnbaum.
