Some $5.2 million has been earmarked to pay the “swollen salaries” of information officers in socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “propaganda bureau,” the New York Post reported in a highly critical story published Sunday.

The amount is a “staggering 175% more than first thought,” according to the Post’s coverage.

The Post reported:

It’s barely been open for business for a month, but the Office of Mass Engagement has already seen its headcount balloon 186% from 14 to 40, with $5,123,756 earmarked for salaries, according to the city’s recently released 2027 executive budget.

The total is more than what city agencies like the Board of Corrections, Community Affairs Unit or Office for People with Disabilities get in their entire budget.

In March, the agency began hiring more than a dozen jobs totaling approximately $1.6 million in taxpayer money, including $150,000 for a campaign director “whose job description mirrored the work of a political campaign staffer,” according to the paper.

Mamdani is planning to hire an additional 26 staffers by next year, at an average salary of $125,000, based on details in the budget, with another $30,000 being set aside for non-staff expenses, according to city documents cited in the report.

“This is purely politics at a time when real services are needed,” Democrat 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.”

He added, “This isn’t for anybody’s benefit but the mayor’s.”

The stated purpose of the office is to get New Yorkers involved in the formulation of policies. However, critics have slammed the move as classic Soviet-era politics, with a leader using taxpayers’ money to stifle opposition to his agenda.

Workers in the Office of Mass Engagement are in addition to the mayor’s own communications team. The office is expected to be larger than that of any other mayor in the city’s history, sources told the paper.

Mamdani’s $51.8 million budget for the mayor’s office in 2027 represents a $7 million increase from former Mayor Eric Adams’ budget last year.

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.