The mayor’s preliminary budget, which he unveiled in January, included $1.4 billion for the Department of Correction’s expense budget. | Getty Images De Blasio's executive budget proposal will include capital funds for jail construction

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s executive financial plan, which he’s set to announce Wednesday, will include $1.1 billion in capital funding towards the construction of new jail facilities, the first step in a long list of goals the administration must meet in order to reach its promise to close the Rikers Island jail.

But despite the financial allocation, the money is not specifically earmarked towards a particular facility or slated to go towards any clear jail replacement option. Instead, the money will be set aside to study possible designs, construction or the feasibility of siting a new facility, either on or off the island.


"This is a smart and prudent investment in new jail capacity that will give the administration both the funding and flexibility to move off Rikers Island over the next 10 years,” Natalie Grybauskas a spokesperson for de Blasio told POLITICO New York in a statement.

“The Mayor is putting up the investment it will take to make this plan a reality,” she added.

The mayor’s preliminary budget, which he unveiled in January, included $1.4 billion for the Department of Correction’s expense budget. The $1.1 billion in capital funds will not add to the capital budget's overall price tag because the money was already allocated for correction purposes. Instead, the money will be reassigned to explore new facilities.

The push to close Rikers Island reached reached a tipping point last month, when the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform released a set of recommendations calling for the closure of the island jail in support of building smaller borough-based facilities in each of the city's five boroughs.

The commission has estimated the plan could take at least ten years and $11 billion dollars to complete. The plan would also be contingent on a continued and steady decline in crime, which would help the city continue to decrease its jail population through a mix of criminal justice and court reforms.

De Blasio has thrown his support behind the ten year timeline and the efforts to decrease the inmate population, but he has not publicly embraced the borough-based jail plan. De Blasio has also been struggling to strike a balance between closing Rikers and vowing to not build jails in certain parts of the city as he begins to campaign for reelection.

"Some out there have said words like 'borough-based.' I’m not buying into that," the mayor said at a press conference last month to announce the city would close Rikers in a decade. "I am working from a neutral position of saying only this — we will need a few more facilities. So, I just want to be very clear, there is no assumption on the number, or the location, or how many," he added.

The budget allocation does not provide specifics about which locations the administration will study for feasibility, and administration officials would only say City Hall is expecting to work with with the City Council to determine the best strategy for siting facilities as they move towards closing Rikers.

De Blasio’s executive budget will also include $100 million towards the construction of a new Department of Correction training academy — a project long requested by the correction officers’ union and top agency officials who have conceded that officers in training do not have proper facilities.