Key Highlights
- New York Mayor-elect Mamdani appointed Dean Fuleihan, 74, as first deputy mayor and Elle Bisgaard-Church as chief of staff on November 10, 2025​
- Fuleihan brings over 40 years of government experience, including roles as NYC budget director and deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio​
- The appointments signal institutional strength as New York Mayor-elect Mamdani prepares to implement ambitious policy agenda including universal childcare and free bus rides​
Opening Overview
New York Mayor-elect Mamdani announced a strategic leadership appointment that signals his administration’s commitment to balancing transformative policy ambitions with seasoned governance expertise. On November 10, 2025, New York Mayor-elect Mamdani tapped Dean Fuleihan, a 74-year-old budget and policy veteran with more than four decades of government service, to serve as his first deputy mayor. The appointment of Fuleihan as New York Mayor-elect Mamdani’s top deputy provides institutional credibility to the incoming administration of the 34-year-old democratic socialist who won the New York City mayoral race on November 4, 2025, capturing 50.4% of the vote.
Simultaneously, New York Mayor-elect Mamdani appointed Elle Bisgaard-Church, his trusted campaign manager and state Assembly chief of staff, to continue in that role at City Hall. The dual announcements came as New York Mayor-elect Mamdani prepares to take office on January 1, 2026, becoming the city’s youngest mayor since 1892 and its first Muslim and South Asian leader. These appointments represent critical early decisions as the mayor-elect faces the challenge of translating an ambitious progressive platform into operational reality while managing a city budget that reached $112.4 billion in fiscal year 2025.​
Fuleihan’s Extensive Government Experience
Dean Fuleihan’s appointment as first deputy mayor under New York Mayor-elect Mamdani marks a return to City Hall leadership for a figure widely regarded as one of New York’s most capable government administrators. Fuleihan previously served as first deputy mayor from 2018 through 2021 under Mayor Bill de Blasio, overseeing critical city operations during the former mayor’s failed presidential run and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before his elevation to first deputy mayor, Fuleihan directed the New York City Office of Management and Budget from 2014 through 2018, where he built the city’s reserves and funded major policy initiatives including the landmark Universal Pre-K program.
Under de Blasio and Fuleihan’s budget leadership, New York City’s budget grew from $72 billion to $85 billion, reflecting significant investments in education, affordable housing, and social services.​ Fuleihan’s government career began in 1978 as a policy analyst in the New York State Assembly, where he spent more than three decades rising through the ranks to become long-time Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s “budget guru”. In this capacity, Fuleihan served as the Assembly’s chief fiscal and policy advisor and principal negotiator on New York State’s budget, which exceeded $130 billion during his tenure.
His extensive experience navigating the complex relationship between New York City and the state legislature in Albany could prove invaluable to New York Mayor-elect Mamdani, whose progressive policy proposals requiring state approval include tax increases on high-income earners and corporations. After retiring from the Assembly in 2011, Fuleihan briefly served as executive vice president at SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering before de Blasio recruited him to lead the city’s budget office following the 2013 mayoral election. Most recently, in June 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Fuleihan to the New York State Financial Control Board, cementing his reputation as a trusted fiscal overseer.​
Bisgaard-Church’s Role as Chief Architect
Elle Bisgaard-Church’s appointment as New York Mayor-elect Mamdani’s City Hall chief of staff represents continuity and trust within the incoming administration. Born on June 28, 1991, Bisgaard-Church has served as New York Mayor-elect Mamdani’s chief of staff in the New York State Assembly since December 2020, developing a reputation as a skilled political operator with exceptional coalition-building abilities. Despite being new to politics and having little policy experience when first hired by the mayor-elect after graduate school, Bisgaard-Church quickly proved her capabilities through what colleagues described as an “evolution from a confrontational activist approach to a deft inside/outside strategy”.
State Senator Jabari Brisport characterized her as an “incredible workhorse,” highlighting the dedication that helped propel the assemblyman to mayor-elect status.​Bisgaard-Church managed New York Mayor-elect Mamdani’s successful 2025 Democratic mayoral primary campaign, marking the first political campaign she had ever directed. The campaign resulted in a stunning upset victory over establishment candidates including former Governor Andrew Cuomo, with Bisgaard-Church serving as what the campaign team calls a “chief architect” behind signature policy proposals like the Department of Community Safety.
Her hiring process in 2020 involved four interview rounds, including sessions with the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, reflecting the collaborative approach that would define her tenure. As chief of staff, Bisgaard-Church will be responsible for “vetting potential deputy mayors, agency heads, timelines and policies” while also managing “co-governance” initiatives including standing weekly meetings with NYC-DSA leaders. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America herself, Bisgaard-Church represents the progressive activist base that powered the electoral success.​
Policy Agenda and Budget Challenges
New York Mayor-elect Mamdani campaigned on a transformative policy platform that critics have characterized as financially unrealistic, making the appointment of budget expert Dean Fuleihan particularly significant. The mayor-elect’s signature proposals include establishing universal childcare for all city children aged 6 weeks to 5 years old, making all New York City buses fare-free, creating city-run grocery stores in each borough, freezing rents for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized tenants, and raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030. The universal childcare proposal alone represents a massive expansion beyond the existing Universal Pre-K and 3-K programs, which enrolled 59,841 four-year-olds and 43,914 three-year-olds as of the 2023-24 school year.
New York Mayor-elect Mamdani plans to fund these initiatives through tax increases on residents earning more than $1 million annually and raising the city’s corporate tax rate, both of which require approval from the state legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul.​ The fiscal reality confronting New York Mayor-elect Mamdani is daunting, with New York City’s fiscal year 2025 expenditures totaling $141.788 billion, up 7.5% from the previous year. During fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30, 2025, the city collected $143.607 billion in revenues and incurred $141.788 billion in expenditures, resulting in a year-end cash balance of $12.229 billion.
Public assistance and social services spending increased 22.7% in FY25, driven primarily by costs associated with asylum seekers, homeless shelters, rental assistance programs, and childcare vouchers for low-income families. The CityFHEPS rental assistance program nearly doubled in cost from $551 million in FY24 to $1.105 billion in FY25, while spending on childcare vouchers surged 96.1% to $963 million. These existing pressures make the ambitious expansion plans particularly challenging, though supporters argue that progressive taxation can generate the necessary revenue.​
| Budget Category | FY 2024 Amount | FY 2025 Amount | Percentage Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Expenditures | $131.877 billion | $141.788 billion | +7.5% |
| Personnel Services | $58.914 billion | $59.964 billion | +1.8% |
| Public Assistance & Social Services | $17.750 billion | $21.780 billion | +22.7% |
| Tax Collections | $73.854 billion | $81.373 billion | +10.2% |
| Federal Aid | $10.985 billion | $13.341 billion | +21.5% |
Source: NYC Comptroller Quarterly Cash Report, FY 2025​
Building a Transformative Administration
New York Mayor-elect Mamdani’s leadership appointments reflect a deliberate strategy to balance ideological commitment with practical governance capacity. At the November 10 news conference announcing the appointments, the mayor-elect emphasized that creating “a new City Hall” requires “both a relentless imagination as to what politics could be, and a fluency of what politics has been”.
The 40-year age gap between the 34-year-old incoming mayor and 74-year-old Fuleihan symbolizes this bridging of generational perspectives and governing philosophies. Former Mayor de Blasio administration officials have praised Fuleihan’s work ethic and capabilities, with former Chief of Staff Emma Wolfe stating that “Dean was part of truly every significant accomplishment in the de Blasio administration” and that “any mayoral administration would be fortunate to have him”.​
New York Mayor-elect Mamdani has also indicated he wants to retain Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, though Tisch, who was appointed by outgoing Mayor Eric Adams in November 2024, has not yet indicated whether she will accept the position. Tisch became the second female NYPD commissioner in the department’s 179-year history when Adams appointed her, and she brings extensive city government experience including previous service at the NYPD and as commissioner of the Department of Sanitation.
Beyond these key appointments, the mayor-elect has assembled a transition team comprising former city and federal officials from the previous two mayoral administrations, signaling a pragmatic approach to governance despite his democratic socialist ideology. The transition planning includes extensive stakeholder engagement, with Bisgaard-Church leading efforts to vet agency heads and establish timelines for implementing policy priorities.​
Closing Assessment
The appointment of Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor represents a strategic decision by New York Mayor-elect Mamdani to anchor his transformative policy agenda with proven government expertise and fiscal credibility. Fuleihan’s four decades navigating New York City and State budget negotiations position him uniquely to help the incoming mayor translate campaign promises into operational reality within the constraints of a complex municipal bureaucracy managing over $140 billion in annual expenditures. Combined with Elle Bisgaard-Church’s grassroots political acumen and coalition-building skills, the leadership team reflects an intentional balance between progressive ambition and institutional knowledge.
As New York Mayor-elect Mamdani prepares to become New York City’s youngest mayor in over a century and its first Muslim and South Asian leader, these early appointments will shape whether his administration can deliver on promises of universal childcare, free public transit, and affordable housing while maintaining fiscal stability. The success of this experiment in democratic socialist governance at the municipal level will be closely watched by progressive movements nationwide as a potential model for transforming urban politics.
