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Civic Tech Experts Question Mayor Adams' Decision to Contract Out Signature 'MyCity' Portal


Mayor Adams unveils the MyCity portal (photo: Caroline Willis/Mayoral Photo Office)


Mayor Eric Adams began to fulfill one of his major campaign promises in March as he launched the “MyCity” online portal that promises to help New Yorkers more easily apply for public benefits and access city services. The platform — which Adams calls "a legacy project" — is in its infancy, currently only providing access to childcare applications, but is meant to grow into a one-stop-shop for many if not all interactions with city government.

But civic technologists say that the administration’s approach to building MyCity repeats the mistakes of the past by farming out the work to contractors, in what was a reversal of its initial intent to develop the portal in-house and do it cheaper and more efficiently.

Adams has repeatedly sung the praises of technology as a tool to make government work better for the people, in part built on his experiences with the NYPD’s CompStat system during his two decades in the police department. In his first month in office as mayor, Adams consolidated the city’s various technology agencies under the banner of the new Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), led by new Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser, and charged it with creating MyCity.

“For the first time, families who need help paying for child care can apply in one place, with one application,” the mayor said in a statement as he launched the portal in March, pledging additional services would be added in the future. “We are using the power of technology to reduce the bureaucracy and red tape in our government, to help New Yorkers get the services their taxes pay for, and to ‘Get Stuff Done’ for the working people of this city.”

But the rollout of MyCity didn’t happen on the timeline his administration had first predicted or through the process it initially envisioned. Initially, OTI had declared that it was building the portal in-house, earning praise from civic technology experts. It was meant to launch by late 2022, but was delayed for months.

Adams admitted in a year-end interview with the New York Times that technology had been one of the areas where he faced a steep learning curve in his first year, delaying the launch of MyCity. “We could rush it out now, but I really want to kick the tires,” he said at the time. At the unveiling, Adams said the delay was worth it in order to get the most user-friendly product possible, calling it "a foundation of how this city is going to function."

Ultimately, while the administration said that about 100 city employees worked on MyCity, a substantial amount of its development has been contracted out to 14 different technology firms in 31 separate contracts so far worth more than $3.4 million.

According to OTI, the city owns the intellectual property created under those contracts. Civic technologists, however, say that the open-source technology infrastructure for MyCity already existed in Access NYC, an online portal managed by the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity where people can already determine their eligibility for public benefits, which is meant to be a key feature built into MyCity.

And they say the administration lost an opportunity to build out a Digital Service Organization (DSO) that could create internal tech solutions using open-source software rather than purchasing outside software, allowing for more efficient and cost-effective iterations of this tool and development of others.

“While it's exciting to see the centralization of services and at least the incorporation of a modern technology stack, it is disappointing that the city's internal teams are not resourced to support this ongoing work,” said Noel Hidalgo, executive director of BetaNYC, a civic technology group, who advised Adams’ transition team on the MyCity portal. “I was expecting to be disappointed. I am disappointed, but I have hopes that something's going to change. I just don't know when that change is going to happen.”

OTI has pushed back against the broad criticism of its reliance on outside vendors.

“It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback from a distance when you're not accountable to more than 8 million New Yorkers. With MyCity, this administration is rebuilding city services from the ground up to help working families effortlessly apply online for child care subsidies and to provide the foundation for New Yorkers to access future city services and benefits,” said OTI spokesperson Ray Legendre, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. “To ultimately deliver a better product for New Yorkers, the City supplemented its internal talent and expertise with external experts, including more than 10 M/WBEs, who provided invaluable support on key components of the project such as translation services, user testing, and design.”

Legendre noted that the work done by one of the main contractors, Innovative Business Concepts, Inc., included strategy, project road-mapping, and portal design, which will all continue to benefit the portal’s functions in the long-term.

The portal’s infrastructure also includes a document retention hub for future applications, a dashboard to track application status, user-friendly authentication, a mechanism that allows virtual signatures from multiple legal guardians, translation into 11 of the most commonly spoken languages in New York City, the capability to upload documents from a mobile device, and cybersecurity measures to protect people's data.

Legendre also said that MyCity could possibly be rolled out on other platforms in the future, such as a mobile application.

Currently, MyCity does include other options besides the childcare application, with categories labeled “Business,” “Jobs,” and “Benefits.” But those merely link to other city agency websites – the last one connects to Access NYC.

“It's not just a website. This is about the fundamentals of how government services are built in the 21st century,” Hidalgo said. But, he added, “there doesn’t seem to be anything revolutionary about it. Even the technology, there's nothing grand about it. It's the same software that the city has been using since the pandemic because it's a better webform software than what the city had been using prior to that.”

Besides HRA’s online tool, civic tech experts also point to other digital tools developed by the city in the recent past, in particular Planning Labs at the Department of City Planning, which could have been used as the model approach.

“For the Adams administration to not be able to recognize where good things were happening and where the opportunity to continue good work is when it comes to information technology  reform is really disappointing,” said Devin Balkind, a civic technologist. Balkind and others have called for the city to create a DSO, similar to models adopted by other cities like Boston or the 18F division of the federal government. “If [the Adams administration] were observant, they would have seen the opportunity to do things much faster, better and cheaper than they're doing it now,” said Balkind.

Even former Mayor Bill de Blasio “paid lip service” to the DSO model by announcing an NYC Digital Service just one month before his tenure ended, Balkind pointed out.

“Adams campaigned on it and I hope he figures out what everyone else seems to have figured out, which is that there's a model for government IT reform that works and is valid and he should use it,” Balkind added.

A spokesperson for City Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, who chairs the Council’s technology committee, declined to comment but said that the Council member is considering an oversight hearing on the administration’s approach to technology contracts, including the development of MyCity.

Comptroller Brad Lander’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The comptroller is responsible for monitoring and reviewing city contracts.

A former city technology manager who wished to remain unnamed said that the use of outside contractors isn’t inherently the wrong choice and not necessarily more expensive. But he questioned the reason behind the choice for MyCity. “Why wasn't the internal team meeting the goals? Why is the NYC Digital Service not a thing anymore? What happened to that?,” he asked.

He did have some words of advice for the administration. “Full ownership [of the software] and capacity for maintaining the project has to stay in house. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for failure because…you can't have forward continuity when there's nobody around that actually knows how the thing works.”

According to Legendre, the website’s technical support and maintenance are carried out by both internal staff and external contractors. And he said that the administration is indeed expanding its technology team. “We’re aggressively building internal capacity and will also continue to tap a wide range of external expertise to deliver solutions as quickly as possible,” he said by email.

A digital service model within city government is the right way to go, said the former city technology manager. “There's this perception that government employees can't build modern tools. They can,” he said. “You just need to hire modern tool builders.”

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note - this article has been updated to note that the city's benefits eligibility screening tool is called Access NYC and is run by the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity. Access HRA is a separate tool managed by the Human Resources Administration. 

Max Politics Podcast: The City Council's Mental Health Roadmap, with Council Member Linda Lee


City Council Member Linda Lee, with Speaker Adrienne Adams & others (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council)


May 10, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: The City Council's Mental Health Roadmap, with Council Member Linda Lee

City Council Member Linda Lee, a Queens Democrat and chair of the Council's mental health committee, joined the show to discuss the CIty Council's mental health roadmap, specific legislation that's part of it, a recent Council hearing on the package, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

Read more: Max Politics Podcast: The City Council's Mental Health Roadmap, with Council Member Linda Lee

How Mayor Adams' Albany Agenda Fared in the New State Budget


Mayor & Governor (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


New York State’s $229 billion budget deal for the new fiscal year has both good and bad news for New York City and Mayor Eric Adams’ Albany agenda.

It directs additional funding for the ongoing migrant asylum-seeker crisis, provides a lifeline to the cash-strapped MTA, funds rent relief for public housing residents, extends a child tax credit, increases enforcement for illegal marijuana sales, and more. But it excluded regulatory changes and tax incentives that would have boosted the city’s housing production, allowed new charter schools, and increased a tax on city businesses while requiring more funds from city government to help pay for the MTA.  

Mayor Adams praised the budget deal, particularly measures on public safety that he prioritized, but has had little to say so far of the many items on his agenda that weren’t approved. He has also continued to emphasize his strong partnership with Governor Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat who has delivered several victories for the mayor in the two budgets she has overseen. 

On Wednesday, Adams heaped praise on Hochul at a news conference where she touted the various public safety measures in the state budget, most notably additional changes to the state’s bail law that Adams supported in their efforts to jail more defendants pre-trial.

“We started out this session in Albany focused on communication, and I just cannot say enough about the governor and what she has done from day one,” Adams said, pointing to their collaboration on successive subway safety plans and funding for services for asylum-seekers. 

“Governor, job well done. I cannot thank you enough from the beginning of this process. And you are right, it was not about a deadline, it was about making sure that we do it right and you did it right. Thank you, governor,” he added, referring to the fact that the state budget was about a month late. In several cases, the Legislature helped Adams achieve alterations to Hochul’s proposed budget that would have hurt the city’s bottom line, in part responding to testimony the mayor delivered at a legislative budget hearing earlier this year.

In response to an inquiry about how the mayor’s state agenda fared in the budget, Fabien Levy, Adams’ chief spokesperson, highlighted the many areas where the city will benefit from the budget and pointed to items that remain on the mayor’s agenda for the post-budget session.

“The budget will put more money in the pockets of working families, provide rent relief for NYCHA tenants, and invest in our public transit without unfairly burdening New Yorkers. And it will allow for improved enforcement against unlicensed cannabis sales so we can grow a safe and equitable industry. These are all priorities we fought hard for, and we are grateful they were included,” Levy said in a statement. “We remain disappointed that more progress was not made on affordable housing and discovery reform. We will continue to make housing and public safety top priorities during the remaining weeks of the state legislative session.” 

The passage of the state budget will now also help define negotiations over the mayor’s $106.7 billion executive budget proposal for the city’s 2024 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Though the proposed budget is about $5.7 billion higher than the budget adopted last June, the mayor has come under fire from the City Council for successive rounds of agency savings plans that could affect certain city services. 

The executive budget was released before the state budget was finally approved, so there are likely to be significant changes to the city’s spending plan. While the state budget delivered more funding on certain fronts, there are also cuts and cost shifts that the city will have to bear. The City Council will soon examine the mayor’s spending plan and other fiscal dynamics in a series of May hearings.

“The State budget was a mixed bag for New York City, although it is certainly better than the sum of proposals in the Executive Budget,” said Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog. 

“On the plus side, the State is going to deliver some fiscal support to accommodate asylum seekers, and put forth a plan to provide recurring resources to the MTA with fewer cost shifts onto New York City directly,” Orecki said in an email. “However, the MTA plan levies a payroll mobility tax increase solely on businesses in New York City. The approach should have been regional. New York City taxpayers already provide a vast majority of operating support to the MTA, directly and indirectly.”

Migrant Funding
The mayor’s main budget priority has been to secure more funding for the city to handle the ongoing arrival of thousands of migrant asylum-seekers. In the last year, according to his administration, more than 57,000 migrants have arrived in the city, with a majority of them living in city shelters and unallowed to work, leading to ballooning costs of providing city services to them. The administration has spent more than $800 million already and estimates that it will spend $4.3 billion in sum by the end of next fiscal year (though that estimate has been challenged as too high or at least not fully supported).

The state budget delivered $1 billion to aid with migrant spending, which would cover roughly one-third of the city’s shelter costs, but Adams has said that will not be enough to avoid cuts in the city’s own budget. He continues to push for more aid from the federal government as well, which has been slow to materialize though money was appropriated for the overall situation late last year.

The situation is expected to become more challenging as the federal government is expected to soon lift Title 42, a covid-era policy that expelled more than 2 million migrants at the border over health concerns. 

Public Safety
The budget was largely delayed because of the governor’s insistence on changes to bail laws, specifically removing the “least restrictive standard” that judges use while determining whether to set bail or remand a defendant into custody. It was necessary, she argued, to give judges more discretion and keep repeat offenders, particularly those with a history of violence, off the streets. The proposal was ultimately approved by the Legislature. 

Adams has also repeatedly called for the bail laws to be tightened, and he hailed the governor for making those changes. “This budget is a budget that clearly will make our city and our communities safer,” he said Wednesday.

The budget did not include rollbacks of sweeping discovery reforms, which both Adams and Hochul had wanted, though it did add $170 million to support the implementation of discovery reforms, including $50 million in capital funding for discovery technology improvements in the city.

The mayor had also pushed for additional funding for prosecutors and public defenders, and the state budget delivers on both fronts. It provides $100 million in aid for prosecution and defense funding across the state, though it's unclear how much of that will be delivered to the city. The budget also allocates $92 million to offset the costs of increasing rates paid to lawyers assigned by courts to represent low-income New Yorkers.  

The governor also signed legislation to curb the illegal sale of marijuana at retail stores across the state by increasing tax and civil penalties and criminalizing sales without a license. Illicit marijuana sales have skyrocketed, particularly in the city, as hundreds of unlicensed dispensaries have proliferated since marijuana was legalized in the state. While the city has been slow to use the enforcement mechanisms at its disposal to slow the proliferation of illegal retail sales, Adams has also pointed the finger at the state, looking for the types of changes that are now law.

NYCHA Rent Relief
As NYCHA struggles with a major rent arrears crisis that has threatened its financial footing, the state budget delivered much needed relief. It allocates $391 million for the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program to provide aid to tenants at NYCHA as well as those receiving federal Section 8 vouchers. 

That funding still falls short of what the city requires – NYCHA tenants owe more than $466 million in arrears – and has not been specifically dedicated to NYCHA as advocates and some lawmakers wanted. 

The MTA
The MTA has been facing a major structural deficit and has lost millions in fare revenue as ridership plummeted during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover. 

The state budget created a plan to rescue the MTA and avoid service cuts, which includes $400 million in reduced costs through efficiencies, providing $300 million in one-time state aid, $35 million to improve subway service, $65 million to reduce a proposed fare increase from 5.5% to 4%, and $35 million for MTA safety improvements.

It would also dedicate $1.5 billion to the MTA from licensing fees from three downstate casino licenses when they are awarded, and a share of annual tax revenues from those casinos, which are estimated at between $231 to $413 million.

It also provides $15 million for a pilot program in New York City to provide one fare-free bus route in every borough, and significantly expands the city’s Automated Bus Lane Enforcement program.

But the plan also marginally raises the Payroll Mobility Tax for New York City’s largest businesses, bringing in an additional $1.1 billion annually, while letting suburbanites off the hook, despite the fact that they are served by the commuter rails and subways.

“The approach should have been regional. New York City taxpayers already provide a vast majority of operating support to the MTA, directly and indirectly,” Orecki said. 

It also requires an additional $165 million annually from the city over the next two years to cover the costs of paratransit services. That was a partial victory for the mayor, as he had pushed back against the governor’s initial proposal that would have required $500 million from the city for the MTA every year.

“The budget is good for riders, and given that riders are a majority of people in the city, it’s good for the city,” said Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director of Riders Alliance, an advocacy group.

Charter Schools
The governor had proposed lifting the charter school cap for New York City, which the city estimated could cost up to $1 billion annually over time. But the proposal did not make it into the final budget. Instead, the budget reauthorizes 14 so-called “zombie charters” in the city that were issued but whose schools have since closed.

Under state law, the city must either give school space to charters or pay their rent for other spaces, but the state budget will cover those rent costs for the zombie charters so the city may be spared any additional burden. Adams, a charter school supporter, had raised questions about the funding for that space and the budget agreement is a victory for the city.

Housing Policy
One of the bigger disappointments for the Adams administration was the complete exclusion of the governor’s “New York Housing Compact” from the state budget. The governor had proposed a plan that would build an estimated 800,000 units of housing over the next decade through the use of mandated growth targets, overrides of local zoning where targets aren’t met, mandating rezonings to create more density around mass transit stops throughout the MTA region, and several other mechanisms. 

Mayor Adams had advocated for a few of the measures and given nominal support to the overall plan to accomplish his own housing program, which targets 500,000 new homes over the next ten years.

Among the items the Adams administration was focused on were eliminating the floor-area ratio (FAR) cap in the city to allow denser buildings, easing conversions of office space to housing, new regulations for basement and cellar apartments, and extending and replacing the expired 421-a affordable housing tax credit and the J-51 tax credit for renovations in exchange for converting to affordable housing.

None of those policies were included in the budget, and the governor’s housing plan failed altogether. Hochul and Adams will continue to fight for some of the proposals to pass in the legislative session that runs into June, while Hochul has pledged to pursue other policies by executive action and said she will come back next year with another go at a sweeping housing plan.

Rachel Fee, executive director of nonprofit New York Housing Conference, expressed broad disappointment with the failure on housing. She said a new regulatory structure for office and basement conversions would be a significant step in quickly creating new housing. 

Fee also said the lack of a replacement for 421-a threatens the city’s own housing program. “Mandatory Inclusionary Housing is one of the city's only tools to produce affordable housing in high income neighborhoods. And if there's not a tax incentive to be paired with mandatory inclusionary housing, we're never going to see the full benefits of that program,” she said. “And we're only going to be building low-income housing in low-income neighborhoods where land costs are cheapest.”

“Authorizing transit-oriented development, increasing the floor area ratio cap, and extending and replacing 421-a would've been a start to addressing the housing crises in New York City and surrounding areas,” said Orecki of Citizens Budget Commission. “Absent these and other policies to produce housing production, those crises will continue snowballing.”

Capital Construction and Procurement Reforms
The Adams administration has launched a major effort to reform the city’s antiquated and cumbersome capital construction processes. But it required approval on several pieces of legislation at the state level to approve alternate project delivery methods, allow progressive design-build, change procurement rules, and more. The Adams administration had also wanted state approval to change the Department of Design and Construction into a public authority.  

None of those measures seem to have made it into the state budget. The mayor’s office did not respond to an inquiry about these proposals.  

Medicaid Funding
The budget will also push about $300 million in annual Medicaid costs onto the city, and a similar amount to the other 57 counties across the state. 

“This is a significant disappointment in the State budget,” Orecki said. “The 2015 Medicaid local share freeze is one of the State’s most significant fiscal policy achievements in recent years, and now they are partially reversing that.”

Community Hiring Legislation
Adams advocated for the state to approve a community hiring bill, which would have allowed the city to require local community hiring by companies that get city contracts. The bill was not included in the budget.  

Income Disregard
The mayor was also pushing for an “income disregard” bill that would allow low-income New Yorkers to continue receiving state public benefits for six months after they obtain new employment if they have already completed a job training program recognized by the state or federal government. The bill aims to tackle the “benefits cliff” where individuals lose public assistance as their income increases past the qualifying threshold. 

The state budget did not include the proposal. 

Expanding Tax Credits
The mayor called on the state to enhance the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit again this year, after improvements to both were included in last year’s budget. Adams had pushed for expanding eligibility for the benefits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including the undocumented. Though undocumented immigrants weren’t added to eligibility for either credit, the child tax credit was expanded to children under the age of four, which is expected to benefit more than 1 million children and their families. 

Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants
Immigrant advocates, many legislators, and Mayor Adams called on the governor to support the “Coverage for All” proposal, which would have expanded the state’s Essential Plan and provided health coverage to those making up to 250% of the Federal Poverty Level, including undocumented immigrants. Their advocacy was unsuccessful and the proposal did not make it into the budget. 

“The state budget was deeply disappointing and a slap in the face for working families and immigrants across the state, including in New York City,” said Jose Lopez, Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York, an immigrant community-focused nonprofit group. “The budget failed to ensure access to basic health coverage and unemployment insurance, and advance any tenant protections whatsoever. As Albany continues to fail our communities, it's alarming to see Mayor Adams double down on his attempts to further cut schools, health care, and housing services—and blaming families who’ve come seeking asylum for it. The Mayor should stop his dangerous rhetoric and refocus on delivering solutions that treat asylum seekers, and all New Yorkers, with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.



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