{"id":457347,"date":"2025-12-19T08:08:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/457347\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:08:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:08:28","slug":"zohran-mamdani-taps-key-congestion-pricing-architect-as-new-nyc-budget-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/457347\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani taps key congestion pricing architect as new NYC budget director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mayor-elect<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/18\/us-news\/hochul-commits-77m-for-nypd-subway-cops-next-year-as-mamdani-pushes-mental-health-teams-in-transit-system\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Zohran Mamdani <\/a>named an architect of New York\u2019s controversial congestion pricing scheme as the city\u2019s new budget director on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Sherif Soliman will serve as director of the Mayor\u2019s Office of Management and Budget under Mamdani, tasked with turning the democratic socialist\u2019s pricey agenda into a reality and managing the city\u2019s spending plan that has ballooned to $116 billion.<\/p>\n<p>It will be the city government veteran\u2019s fourth time serving under a New York City mayor, and he more recently was CUNY\u2019s chief financial officer and vice chancellor.<\/p>\n<p>Zohran Mamdani announced Sherif Soliman as his chief budget director Thursday.  Gabriella Bass<\/p>\n<p>Soliman served as a key member of Eric Adams MTA board and de Blasio\u2019s committee to review congestion pricing.  Gabriella Bass<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has managed a multi-billion dollar budget, reduced the structural deficit by nearly 80% in two years, and has deep competence navigating the political complexities of budget management,\u201d Mamdani said from the Queens public housing development where Soliman grew up.<\/p>\n<p>The father of two served on former Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s Traffic Mobility Review Board, where he was a top financial official tasked with laying the foundation for congestion tolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Soliman then served under Mayor Eric Adams as chief policy and delivery officer a<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/05\/25\/ny-state-senate-to-vote-on-mta-appointees-from-adams-and-hochul\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nd as one of his four members<\/a> of the MTA board \u2013 before stepping down in 2023 to join CUNY.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He resigned from Adam\u2019s MTA board months before it voted to approve the peak $15 congestion toll \u2013 which will go into effect after 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Soliman resigned from the MTA board months before the peak congestion toll.  Gabriella Bass<\/p>\n<p>The $9 tolls touted by pols, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mamdani, began hitting drivers in the Manhattan congestion zone below 60th Street in early January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can honestly say that I am as excited today as I was 28 years ago about the opportunity to deliver meaningful change for public service,\u201d Soliman said from the Queens Community House community center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBudgets are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet, lines on a graph, or statistics on a chart,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re about priorities. They\u2019re about the hopes and dreams of New Yorkers for a more affordable city.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani named an architect of New York\u2019s controversial congestion pricing scheme as the city\u2019s new budget&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":457348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,31361,13237,13239,13845,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-457347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-budgets","10":"tag-city-budget","11":"tag-city-hall","12":"tag-congestion-pricing","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115745213832319169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}