The mayor at Google (photo: Mayoral Photography Office)
In September, Google announced that it will expand its physical presence on the West side of Manhattan by purchasing St. John’s Terminal. The price tag? $2.1 billion. The new office space will open in 2023, and when it does Google will be one of the largest leaseholders in the city.
In 2023, approximately 46,000 undergraduate students will graduate from the City University of New York (CUNY) system, assuming current enrollment and graduation trends hold. Over 60% will come from families with annual incomes of less than $30,000.
The CUNY system has been touted as an engine of economic mobility in New York City, but it’s critically neglected. New York needs to inject capital investment from large corporations, like Google, into the CUNY system if it is serious about economic growth and sustainability. To do this, the city should raise property taxes on the 50-plus New York City-based Fortune 500 companies and appropriate the money to the CUNY system. This investment should eventually eliminate the burden of tuition for all students.
Tuition dollars account for 40% of CUNY’s funding, the second-largest source behind state dollars. This means the burden of supplying gasoline for the “engine of economic mobility” falls significantly on students and their families. CUNY is a proven driver of social mobility, but this practice— underfunding one of the city’s best educational resources— is dampening the system’s potential impact. This can change, however. We only need to look toward St. John’s Terminal.
By raising property taxes on NYC Fortune 500 companies and investing that money in the CUNY system, the city will see a stronger path-to-college pipeline from underserved public high schools and increased economic development in low-income neighborhoods. The buck can’t stop there, however. These Fortune 500 companies must also invest in internship and mentorship programs with individual CUNY schools, which would benefit all involved as public-private partnerships.
Over 80% of CUNY graduates stay in New York City post-graduation, meaning money invested in CUNY is money invested in the future of New York City’s workforce. With the financial and institutional support of locally-based Fortune 500 companies, low-income communities will reap the benefits of generational economic development as more young people are able to attend college and attain higher-paying jobs as a result. Furthermore, creating these public-private partnerships would give corporations that call New York City home improved access to a diverse network of talented future professionals who can take their companies to the next level.
Until the financial crisis of 1976, CUNY was free for city residents. Now, undergraduate tuition is $6,930 a year for full-time students at four-year colleges and $4,800 annually for full-time community college students. It’s not hard to see how, for a family with a household income of less than $30,000 a year, this is crippling. Eliminating CUNY tuition by taxing large corporations will both lessen the burden for struggling students and open the door of opportunity to students who might not have otherwise been able to afford college at all.
Students and their families aren’t the only ones who stand to gain from these partnerships. Requiring social investment in addition to compulsory financial investment in CUNY institutions will allow NYC-based companies to attract, develop, and tap diverse talent in its incipient stages. Not only that, but they can make good on their promises to recruit and hire more diverse talent in the coming decades. CUNY students are over 65% Black or Hispanic. Partnering CUNY institutions with industries that are predominately white will be one step on the path to desegregating some of the largest corporations in the country.
To be sure, some corporations are already investing in mentorship and internship programs in CUNY schools. In August of 2021, for example, the CUNY “Futures in Finance” program launched in collaboration with Bloomberg LP, Centerbridge and Goldman Sachs. This program aimed to “cultivate a vast pool of untapped talent and enable companies across the finance industry to engage students from first semester through graduation.” While this is surely the right idea, it is currently only available for students at three CUNY campuses and does not address students’ costs of tuition. Pairing an initiative like “Futures in Finance” with a capital injection and implementing it at scale would create the broadest and boldest pathway to development for New York City’s future workforce.
Critics might argue that raising corporate taxes will deter organizations from coming to the city. Raising taxes on corporations, however, is one of the highest polling issues across party lines, supported nationally by nearly two-thirds of Americans. When Amazon announced in 2018 that it would build a new headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, a broad coalition of opponents protested the fact that the corporation would receive over $3 billion in tax incentives and grants. The backlash ultimately led Amazon to pull out of the deal in February 2019. Now, as the city continues to recuperate from pandemic-related shocks, it’s more important than ever not only to avoid these kinds of missteps, but to ensure private businesses and public enterprises like CUNY experience equitable recoveries.
If private companies like Google can afford billions of dollars in office space, they can surely spare the change for deeper investment in their own backyard. By implementing a capital and social investment system at scale, more students will be able to attend college and businesses will have access to more fresh, diverse talent. Creating public-private partnerships and raising taxes on corporations will move the city closer to making the CUNY system the world-class engine of social mobility New York students deserve.
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Devynn Barnes is a graduate student at the New York University Wagner School of Public Service studying International Development Policy and Management. She has worked in both elementary and high schools in the Bronx.
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A 'jails to jobs' event (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The humanitarian crisis at Rikers Island is alarming. Criminal justice reform advocates and elected officials are right to demand an end to the violence, death, and chaos. Governor Kathy Hochul deserves praise for ordering the release of nearly 200 detainees.
But what happens to New Yorkers after they leave Rikers and other correctional facilities?
That’s a key question few in public life are asking.
Here’s the reality: New Yorkers seeking to re-enter our workforce and economy after incarceration often end up in low-wage, dangerous jobs in the construction industry.
Construction is one of few industries where New Yorkers with criminal records can find employment. New York’s reentry system relies on unregulated employment agencies to funnel workers from correctional facilities to nonunion construction sites. These firms are known as ‘body shops.’ They provide physical labor to contractors who want to build projects cheaply.
Reentry workers must “seek and maintain employment” as a condition of their release on parole. That means construction employers can regularly reduce safety standards, cut wages, and eliminate job-site protections – and get away with it. Formerly incarcerated New Yorkers risk re-imprisonment if they speak out against this exploitation and demand better treatment.
Our city’s reentry workforce overwhelmingly comes from low-income communities of color – Black and brown communities suffering from the highest death rates and job losses from COVID-19, and the highest crime rates.
Research and common sense tell us that the quality of reentry employment, as measured in job satisfaction and wage levels, leads to reduced recidivism – less crime and violence on our streets. There is no reason to engage in criminal activity when you are on a stable career path with economic security. But if the only job you can get after leaving Rikers or another correctional facility is a low-wage survival job, you may return to crime to pay your bills or a number of other reasons.
That’s why all New Yorkers who want criminal justice reform and a safer city should also support higher employment standards for reentry jobs in construction.
A bill now supported by the majority of the New York City Council will help reform our broken reentry system and protect our communities, while helping to improve job quality for formerly incarcerated New Yorkers.
It would require construction ‘body shops’ and similar reentry employment agencies to be licensed. This legislation would give reentry workers clear notice of their rights and job assignments, and disclose basic information about the agencies’ workforce and labor practices. Crucially, reentry labor brokers and job-placement firms would be required to tell workers what benefits are being offered, what their pay will be, and where they will work. This disclosure requirement is essential for protecting laborers who will build the future of New York, and for incentivizing the construction industry to create safer and better-paying jobs as part of covid recovery.
The path to a safer city requires the creation of more economic opportunities for New Yorkers to be safe and thrive in their jobs. That’s what this bill will do, along with initiatives such as Pathways to Apprenticeship, which the City Council has actively supported, in District 21 in Queens and in other communities of color hit hardest by COVID-19.
This smart, pragmatic bill has garnered support from City Council members across the city. Passage of the bill this fall would be a major legacy item for City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. Indeed, it would send a strong and clear message about how our city can advance real reentry in communities ravaged by mass incarceration, where economic opportunity has long been absent.
Plenty of responsible contractors and forward-thinking developers earn strong profits while partnering with trade unions to build and grow our city. They know that lowering construction safety standards, wages, and job quality is a race to the bottom that will drag us all down.
Expanding construction union membership will boost wages and increase economic security for New Yorkers returning home from prison, while reducing recidivism and enhancing public safety for all.
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Francisco Moya is a New York City Council Member representing District 21 in Queens. On Twitter @FranciscoMoyaNY. John Simmons is a former body shop worker and member of Laborers’ Local 79.
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NY AG Letitia James with a big check (photo: @PatriciaFahy109)
It was with dismay that I read recent news reports about New York Attorney General Tish James embarking on a “HealNY” tour around the state to announce the distribution of $1.5 billion to fight the opioid epidemic.
The press announcements from the Attorney General's office appear to give her full and sole credit for the amounts and distribution of this fund. For example, an October 4 press release says: New York Attorney General Letitia James will begin her ‘HealNY’ statewide tour that will deliver up to $1.5 billion to New York communities most impacted by the opioid crisis....Today’s announcements are the first in Attorney General James’ statewide tour taking place throughout October, where she will highlight her efforts to combat the opioid crisis in New York and across the nation.”
A follow-up led with the announcement that "Elected Officials and Advocates Across New York City Praise AG James’ Continued Efforts to Deliver Funds for Opioid Abatement to Five Boroughs.”
This reminded me of a similar situation six years ago when Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced a plan to make grants totaling $800 million to a variety of criminal justice programs. In both instances, the funds to be allocated came from settlements of civil litigation -- the DA’s from banks and the AG’s from drug companies.
Oh no, I thought, here we go again!
When the DA’s criminal justice fund was announced, I said that notwithstanding his good intentions and reliance on a respected and capable entity to administer the program, it is the legislative budgeting process that should make spending decisions about money paid to city or state government, not a law enforcement officer:
“…the law giving Mr. Vance sole control over the funds should be reconsidered. Ideally…the money should have been treated as revenue to the city, and its expenditure determined through the budget process.”
“No one official should be making decisions about how substantial sums of revenue are distributed…”
I had also made this point when a dispute broke out between then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo about who had the authority it distribute more than $600 million from a settlement with JP Morgan:
“Funds paid in settlement of litigation with the state, unless intended to compensate for specific losses, should be used as determined through the normal budget and appropriation process. The attorney general should not be able to unilaterally allocate public funds without the executive and legislative review that the budget process is intended to provide.”
So the campaign-style roadshow by Attorney General James indicated that once again litigation-generated revenue was being inappropriately distributed by a prosecutor outside the budget process. But fortunately, that turns out not to be the case.
The Attorney General collaborated with members of the State Senate and Assembly to pass legislation this year creating an Opioid Settlement Fund to serve as a lockbox for all receipts from settlements related to the opioid epidemic, reserving all of the funding for substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery. The Fund will be overseen by a 19-person board including commissioners of relevant state agencies and two appointees of the AG as well as appointees of the Governor, both houses of the Legislature, and nominees of counties and other localities. The law specifies the purposes for which the funds from the relevant litigations may be used and a formula for distributing the funds throughout the state.
How reassuring to see that the AG understood that the monies she would obtain from the opioid litigation should be controlled by appropriation of the Legislature, with her office’s input but not ultimate authority. The full Settlement Fund Board has not been appointed yet and therefore the specific distribution of funds has not been determined and likely will not be completed by the November 1 date in the statute.
While it would be far better if all litigation proceeds were deposited in the general fund to be used as needed to fund the government, this structure is an improvement over prior law and practice, and that is more important than the impression left by the AG’s tour that one elected official is disbursing a big chunk of money on her own.
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Carol Kellermann was president of Citizens Budget Commission from 2008 through 2018.
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