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City Council Examines Board of Elections' Readiness to Implement Early Voting, Poll-Site Interpretation


voting gen elect

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


The New York City Board of Elections, a state entity funded by the city, has a less-than-stellar reputation for running elections and has long been resistant to going beyond the letter of state law in improving voter access and participation. And this year, the city BOE must contend with a new state mandate to create an early voting program for potentially millions of voters, as well as a push by the city to provide broader poll site interpretation services in immigrant communities.

At a Tuesday hearing of the New York City Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, officials from the BOE testified to the complexities of implementing the new early voting mandate by the November election.

The state Legislature recently approved the program, which requires nine consecutive days of early voting before Election Day and, according to the provisions of the law, a minimum of 34 poll sites across the city. The state also passed legislation to allow the use of electronic poll books at poll sites. The state BOE approved regulations for early voting on Monday and the city BOE faces a deadline to declare its chosen sites on Wednesday, May 1.

While Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday called for the BOE to offer 100 early voting sites across the city, offering the board $75 million to do so, the BOE does not appear ready to meet the mayor’s request. Not long after BOE executives testified before the Council, the board's commissioners voted to approve 38 early voting polling sites for November, inviting criticism from the mayor and others.

There will be 10 sites in Brooklyn and seven each in the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The board also determined early voting hours, which will vary based on date leading up to the November 5 Election Day. Voters will receive their early voting poll site assignment from the BOE. 

The City Council committee hearing also delved into a new bill proposed by Brooklyn Council Member Mark Treyger that would require the Voter Assistance Advisory Committee, a nonpartisan entity housed under the New York City Campaign Finance Board, to provide interpretation services at poll sites in several languages beyond what is currently required by state and federal law.

The bill would help facilitate the work of the city’s newly created Civic Engagement Commission, approved by voters in a ballot referendum last year, that is charged with, among other things, developing a poll site interpretation services program. Still, the city BOE has repeatedly argued that it is not under the jurisdiction of city laws, but of state laws, complicating matters.

Early Voting Poses Challenges
New York has long been a laggard in voter turnout and election reform, and it became the 38th state to approve early voting this year. But the program is a monumental lift, particularly for the five boroughs of New York City, home to 8.5 million residents.

The recently approved legislation to create the program requires one early voting site for every 50,000 registered voters in a county and no more than seven sites, though local counties have the discretion to add more. The 2020 state budget includes $10 million in funding for early voting and $14.1 million for electronic poll books for the entire state, distributed according to a formula that the state BOE must create.  

On Monday, Mayor de Blasio offered the city BOE $75 million to establish 100 polling sites for early voting (he included an additional $21 million for the purchase of electronic poll books in his executive budget proposal last week).

“We have to get early voting right, and we're saying very clearly to the Board of Elections, we'll put our money where our mouth is,” de Blasio said.

At the Tuesday Council hearing, New York City’s new and first chief democracy officer, Ayirini Fonseca-Sabune, emphasized the importance of instituting a robust early voting program. “If a significant percentage of New York City voters vote during the early voting period, we may be able to reduce some of the strain that we see on our Election Day systems that has led to breakdowns at polling places,” she said. “Lines will be shorter, poll sites will be less crowded.”

She noted that early voting also correlates with higher participation, and stressed that seven sites in each county are “not sufficient to accommodate the needs of voters in New York City.” She pointed out, for instance, that Brooklyn would essentially have the same number of sites as upstate counties one-fifth the registered voters.

BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan, a few hours before the board's commissioners make their early voting decisions, repeatedly emphasized that early voting is a complicated endeavor and that the city must take a cautious approach in order to establish a strong foundation for the program that will allow it to grow and improve over time.

When the program was approved, the city did not have the infrastructure in place to implement it, he said, and is in the process of creating it, including providing a system of ballots on demand to voters. Among the issues is that the board must approve a new vendor to provide electronic poll books, which will happen in June, and then has to train poll workers in the new systems.  

Ryan stressed that the board is willing to work with the de Blasio administration and the City Council to ensure they create an efficient program, but he insisted that in soliciting input from other jurisdictions that have long had early voting programs, the BOE has been warned of the many variables and challenges they face. “The worst thing that we could do is get overly ambitious and not have it work and undermine...voter confidence,” he said, emphasizing the need to phase in a program over time.

“There will be obstacles. Nothing will be perfect...There’s gonna be many lessons learned,” said Dawn Sandow, the BOE’s deputy executive director. As usual, none of the board’s commissioners, political appointees from the local Democratic and Republican parties who are confirmed through the Council, testified before the Council. Those commissioners make many essential decisions to BOE operations, which are carried out by Ryan, Sandow, and their employees.

Voting reform advocates celebrated the passage of early voting and praised the mayor for offering a massive boost in funding. But even they cautioned at the hearing that the BOE must be careful in implementing a new system that could cause confusion among both voters who must use it and the poll workers who must administer it. Some also raised concerns about cyber security and urged the BOE to ensure adequate firewalls and redundancies to protect election systems and the integrity of individual votes.

Interpreting State Law and City Mandates
As a creature of state law, the BOE has consistently opposed the mayoral administration and City Council’s efforts to impose new mandates on its operations. Since 2017, it has refused to abide by a local law requiring the postage of signs when a poll site is moved. More recently, the city again ran up against the BOE when it attempted to provide language interpretation services in poll site buildings.

By state and federal law, the BOE is only required to provide interpretation services in five languages -- Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Bangla -- which city officials and advocates say is insufficient for New York City’s population, which speaks hundreds of languages.

The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs had additionally sought to provide services in Russian, Haitian Creole, Yiddish, and Polish within poll site buildings during the February 26 special election for public advocate. But the BOE sued the city, arguing that since the interpreters were not hired and trained by the board, they would be engaging in a form of electioneering and therefore must remain at a distance of at least 100 feet from a polling site.

A state judge rejected the BOE’s argument and did not issue an injunction against the city, allowing interpreters into poll sites. But the BOE has appealed and that ongoing litigation could determine whether the city can continue to provide those services for future elections.

Both Tregyer’s bill and the new Civic Engagement Commission would create a much more expansive interpretation services program. “Language access is not electioneering,” Treyger said, accusing the BOE of essentially taking actions that are “nothing short of voter suppression.”

But the BOE’s Ryan said the city should rather await the legislative process playing out at the state level. At the hearing, he pointed to bills introduced in February in the state Senate and Assembly that would preempt the city’s efforts if they pass.

“There really is no daylight, Councilman Treyger, between your position and the board’s position,” Ryan said. He noted that if the BOE were to provide interpretation services for any  particular linguistic group without being legally required to do so, it could give other groups the potential to sue under the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. “What we’re simply asking for is a structure, a legal structure, some authority to tell us legally ‘This is what you need to do,’” he said.

The de Blasio administration seemed to hedge its bets on Treyger’s proposal. MOIA Commissioner Bitta Mostofi said the administration supports the intent of the bill but did not express direct support for it. She said the CEC, rather than the VAAC, should be tasked with implementing it and that the bill was just one of the elements of implementing a program. “There should other factors that are taken into consideration when establishing where the services should be and what those services should be,” she said.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Where Top City and State Officials Stand on Raising the Charter School Cap


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Gov. Cuomo at a charter school rally (photo: governor's office)


After several new charter schools were approved last month, the cap on such schools allowed in New York City was reached. New York State has a cap on the number of issuable charters, which allow a group to start a new charter school, the controversial, privately-run, publicly-funded schools that mostly proliferate in the five boroughs and educate roughly 10% of the city's 1 million students. Within the larger cap, there is a sub-cap for charters that can be issued for schools in New York City.

In the past few months, 18 applicants for charters in New York City made it through the initial application process and a meeting of the SUNY Board’s charter schools committee, one of the two authorizers, but there were only seven charters left to be issued under the sub-cap.

New York City Charter School Center, among others, raised concerns about this earlier this year. James Merriman, the center's CEO, called the situation “the definition of a crisis” at the time. Charter school advocates had hoped that the sub-cap would be addressed in the state budget process, but there was little talk of an extension in Albany during budget negotiations.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat and longtime charter school supporter, favors lifting the cap. Mayor Bill de Blasio, a second-term Democrat and longtime charter opponent, is against lifting the cap; as is City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. It’s not clear how much say de Blasio, Johnson, and Williams will have, though, as the decision will be made by Cuomo and the state Legislature, where the Assembly appears cold to the idea of lifting the sub-cap while the Senate appears open to it.

While it was clear the New York City sub-cap on charter schools would be hit this year, Cuomo did not include raising the cap in his State of the State policy book or his executive budget. After the Cuomo administration declined to comment for a Gotham Gazette story in February, when the cap was about to be hit, a budget deal was reached with no mention of the cap.

“We support raising this artificial cap, but the legislature needs to agree as well,” said Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi, in a statement to Gotham Gazette, echoing a comment he made mid-April to the New York Post.

This public support heightens the potential that there could be a change to the charter school cap before the end of the legislative session in June. Cuomo has long been a strong supporter of charter schools and his advisor’s comments mirror Merriman’s statement that the cap is “arbitrary.”

A spokesperson for Senate Democrats told Gotham Gazette, “We will discuss as a conference” while a spokesperson for Assembly Democrats said “It is not something we are considering.”

State Senator John Liu, a Queens Democrat and the chair of the Senate’s subcommittee on New York City Schools, said “The charter cap should be increased only when charter schools are held to the same accountability standards as public schools. For every family waiting for a spot in a charter school, there are more families waiting for a spot in a preferred public school.”

Before Democrats took a majority in the State Senate last year, Senate Republicans and the Independent Democratic Conference would work with Cuomo to advance charter school priorities as part of the budget process or the regular negotiations over extending mayoral control of New York City public schools.

With the new budget, state lawmakers agreed to extend mayoral control for three years, until June 2022, after Mayor Bill de Blasio will leave office, but the charter cap was left out of the deal, perhaps indicative of the new Democratic reality in Albany.

This last happened in 2017 when a deal was struck for a two-year extension of mayoral control of New York City schools. The deal also allowed 22 revoked or surrendered charters to be reissued.

It’s unclear how hard Cuomo will push for the cap to be raised, and how receptive Senate Democrats might be. As often happens in Albany, a deal may be reached where Assembly Democrats get movement on a priority in exchange for agreeing to the cap being lifted.

Senate Democrats could also help mitigate potential opposition in key swing districts in next year’s legislative elections, when they will be trying to defend their new majority for the first time. Charter school interests are often major campaign donors -- including to Cuomo, the former IDC, and Senate Republicans -- and spenders on independent expenditure campaigns meant to influence elections.

Those charter interests have also spent heavily against de Blasio in the past. Asked for the mayor’s position on the charter school cap, a spokesperson pointed to a statement by the mayor from September and said “our position hasn’t changed.”

“I believe that the charter cap is perfectly sufficient the way it is,” de Blasio said at a press conference then, “and that our focus should not be on the expansion of charters. Our focus should be on doing the hard work of making our traditional public schools better.”

Other New York City elected officials are also against an expansion of charter schools in the city. “I have long had concerns about charter schools, which is why I do not support raising the cap. Chief among those concerns is the fact that charter schools do not have the same level of transparency that’s required of public schools, which is inherently unfair. Our focus should be on strengthening all of our schools and ensuring every student gets the opportunity to succeed,” said City Council Speaker Johnson in a statement to Gotham Gazette.

"The answer to the real issues in the NYC public school system is not to create further imbalance," Public Advocate Williams said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "I do not support the the current push to raise the charter school cap. In fact, what the Governor should do is pay the public schools of the city the money they’ve been owed for decades. I also urge the Administration to launch a full investigation into the controversial disciplinary practices seen in some charter schools to combat wrongdoings that continue to occur.”

A spokesperson for Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, a Democrat, said she is “opposed to raising the cap, period.” In previous testimony, Brewer has said that charter schools “are unsustainable education practices that serve the few at the expense of many.”

Spokespeople for other top city officials -- Comptroller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. -- did not provide comment for this story on where those officials stand on the charter school cap, despite multiple requests to each office.

Adam and Diaz Jr. have both been supportive of charter schools, while Stringer has been more cool to the privately-run, publicly-funded schools that now educate roughly 10% of the city’s students.

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by Andrew Millman, Gotham Gazette
   

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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De Blasio Presents $92.5 Billion Executive Budget with Agency Savings, New Investments & Response to State Shifts


mayor bill de blaso exec bud

(photo: Rob Bennett for the Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio)


Mayor Bill de Blasio released on Thursday a $92.5 billion executive budget for the 2020 fiscal year that begins July 1, an increase of about $300 million from his preliminary proposal in February and nearly $3.4 billion more than the budget adopted last year.

De Blasio’s latest budget plan will become the basis for City Council hearings and negotiations between the administration and the Council before a budget deal is reached in June. The next budget will again mark a record high for city spending, which has increased by about $20 billion since de Blasio took office in 2014.

The executive plan shows results from de Blasio’s first “program to eliminate the gap” agency savings initiative, several new targeted investments, and adjustments based on the new state budget that went into effect April 1.

The administration is not funding many new initiatives this year, with the mayor predicting an era of “fiscal caution” ahead as both the economy and tax revenue growth slow. Most of the increased spending planned for next fiscal year owes to labor contract agreements settled by the administration, which added about $1 billion alone, and hundreds of millions for broad education aid, debt service payments, expanding the 3-K for All early childhood education program, charter school costs, and fringe benefits for city workers.

De Blasio emphasized that the future of the economy remains uncertain and that the last few months have shed little light on what the city can expect both from the national and global economy.

“We at this point are looking at so many contradictory developments, we don’t have a way to make full sense of them, is the truth,” he said. “The volatility of the policy changes in Washington are impossible to trace at this point...Nothing has changed since preliminary. We still are worried and that’s why we kept this very modest.”

The few “strategic investments” outlined in the executive budget include $60 million to retrofit city buildings to cut carbon emissions, $22 million to fund outreach efforts for the 2020 Census, $15 million to expand the “Fly Car” emergency vehicle program in the Bronx, $12 million in baselined funding for services for students in homeless shelters, and $6 million to fund emergency repairs at NYCHA community centers.

The Census funding quickly caught the eye of Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who insisted that the city must provide $40 million for outreach as the Council has requested. That $18 million difference may make one focal point of de Blasio-Council negotiations over the coming months.

In past years, de Blasio has relied on a Citywide Savings Program, calling on agencies to voluntarily identify cuts in spendings through efficiencies and reassessing costs. But this year, the mayor instituted a Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG) for the first time, following the example of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and mandated a $545 million target reduction for a list of agencies to meet. The administration also expanded a hiring freeze which, together with the PEG, was meant to find $750 million in savings across the current and next fiscal year.

De Blasio’s executive budget surpassed that target and includes $916 million in savings, he said; $629 million came from the PEG, including $104 million at the Department of Education. Notably, the administration cut $9 million in planned spending for the ThriveNYC mental health initiative, which is run by First Lady Chirlane McCray and has come under scrutiny in the last few months for a lack of clarity in its budgeting, performance metrics, and results. The City Council had pushed to cut about $50 million from the planned spending on the broad program, which is projected to spend about $241 million in the 2020 fiscal year. 

De Blasio plans to use some found savings to fund $150 million in “additional, unanticipated new needs,” de Blasio said, including $33 million for special education initiatives, hiring school psychologists and speech teachers for needs assessments; $88 million for growing charter school cost mandates; and $35 million to cover a state funding cut for pre-trial mental health evaluations.

The city did manage to avoid some funding cuts and unfunded mandates it expected from the state, but will, according to the mayor, still have to shell out more than $300 million to provide financial assistance to needy families, fund election reforms recently approved by the state, and fill gaps in education funding and health services. The cost is about half the original burden that was estimated at more than $600 million, which had been the de Blasio administration expectation before the state budget was finalized with less pain for the city.

De Blasio said he holds out hope that the $96 million in costs for implementing election reforms -- including early voting and electronic poll books -- could be mitigated. “We’re still hopeful of some state support but nothing is guaranteed at this moment,” he said, forcing the city to account for it in the budget. The state included funding for localities for implementing both measures in the new budget, but those outlays have not been clarified yet.

The executive budget does not add to the city’s reserves but continues to maintain them at the same levels as last year including $1 billion in the general reserve, $250 million in the capital stabilization reserve and $4.47 billion in the Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund. Comptroller Scott Stringer has urged the administration to increase the reserves so the city has a budget cushion of roughly 15% of total spending, up from the current level of about 11%. The City Council, in its response to the preliminary budget, similarly called for at least $250 million in additional rainy day funds.

In response to de Blasio's executive budget, Council Speaker Johnson, Council Member Daniel Dromm, who chairs the finance committee, and Council Member Vanessa Gibson, who chairs the capital budget subcommittee, issued a joint statement. "The Council is disappointed that Mayor de Blasio has failed to fund many significant citywide Council priorities in the Fiscal 2020 Executive Budget, including many social service programs as well as $250 million in reserves."

They went on to reiterate their demand for more savings and said that "by not funding vital services, the de Blasio Administration is engaging in the same 'budget dance' that it had once pledged to end. This is completely unfair to the nonprofits who run these programs and who are now unable to plan their future."

"The Council will continue to fight for our priorities and programs that make our City stronger," the statement continues. "That includes Fair Student Funding and pay parity for human service providers and early childhood educators," as well as the additional Census outreach funds. "We look forward to the upcoming Executive Budget hearings," they concluded.

The mayor’s executive budget plan for fiscal year 2020 operating expenditures is also accompanied by the capital spending plan. De Blasio’s updated 10-year capital strategy is now expected to cost $116.9 billion, up from $104.1 billion proposed in the preliminary budget. It includes $16.4 billion for school facilities, $13.1 billion for road and bridge repair, $9.7 billion to preserve affordable housing, $8.7 billion to build borough-based jails, and $6.5 billion for maintaining sewer and water infrastructure. De Blasio said the construction of the jails and this the move off Rikers Island was also expected to be completed by 2026, a year earlier than initially projected.

De Blasio did note that the affordable housing component could see an increase once newly appointed Deputy Mayor Vicki Been comes out with recommendations for the mayor’s massive affordable housing program.

“This administration believes in aggressive capital spending,” de Blasio said, though he insisted it’s done with a “watchful eye” on city debt and the broader economic outlook. He noted that the city’s bond rating was recently upgraded by Moody’s Investors Services, a sign of responsible fiscal management, and also emphasized the absence of an infrastructure plan at the federal level.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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