Gotham Gazette

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Citizens Budget Commission

Citizens Budget Commission

  • Mayor Adams, City Council Announce Agreement on $107 Billion City Budget

    Mayor Adams & Speaker Adams shake on the budget deal (photo: @NYCMayor)


    Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced on Thursday a deal on a massive $107 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year, just days before the July 1 deadline, marking the conclusion of months of contentious negotiations between the two sides of City Hall. The full Council is scheduled to vote the budget through on Friday morning.

    This budget is the largest at adoption in city history, adding $6 billion in spending compared to the budget adopted last June, largely because of spending on

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  • 15 Things to Watch as a New City Budget is Negotiated

    Mayor Adams & Speaker Adams announce a budget agreement, June 2022 (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    As the July 1 deadline looms for New York City’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year, Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council must resolve major differences over what will be a roughly $110 billion spending plan.

    This year’s budget also closely coincides with this month’s primary elections, which has many City Council members on the ballot and may be delaying a final agreement until just before the start of the new fiscal year.

    Among the series of disputes between the two sides of

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  • Hochul Gambled On A Late Budget; Did It Pay Off?

    Gov. Hochul meets with legislative leaders (photo: @GovKathyHochul)


    The dust is beginning to settle on the $229 billion New York state budget, which was approved last week after a month of delay that saw Governor Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature make major compromises on spending and policy measures.

    Hochul has expressed no regret for delaying the budget for the second time in two years, after she managed to convince the Legislature to support her top priority and change the state’s bail laws yet again. She won other priorities, too, but came up empty on her biggest proposal for the

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  • Is Mayor Adams' Spending Plan an 'Austerity' Budget?

    Mayor Adams and his spending plan (photo: Benny Polatseck/Mayor's Office)


    In January, Mayor Eric Adams proposed a $102.7 billion preliminary budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year, stressing the fiscal restraint of his administration amid various budgetary risks and uncertainties facing the city. But while it would be a near-record sum in city spending if passed as-is, progressive City Council members and advocates have called it an “austerity budget” that proposes cuts to critical services that will hurt the city’s most vulnerable populations at a time when the city can afford to invest more in its

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  • Preservation Trust and Beyond: Report Assesses NYCHA's Progress and Challenges in Executing 'Blueprint for Change'

    A NYCHA building in Queens (photo: Governor's Office)


    In July 2020, the New York City Housing Authority published “A Blueprint for Change” to address decades of organizational mismanagement, financial instability, and repeated crises that were affecting the health and wellbeing of the city’s roughly 500,000 public housing residents. Last year, NYCHA achieved one of the crucial steps from that plan as the state

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  • Facing Depleted Agencies, New York City Government Plans to Add 25,000 More Employees by June 2023

    Mayor Adams at City Hall (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.)


    New York City’s municipal workforce dropped by more than 19,000 full-time employees over the last two years, according to a report released this week by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office, and there are currently more than 21,000 vacancies as city agencies struggle to retain workers and maintain city services.

    Questions have repeatedly been raised about whether Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is able to accomplish its policy goals given

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  • Fires, Storms, Covid, and Asylum-Seekers: Emergency Spending and the New York City Budget

    Mayor Adams at a City Hall press conference (photo: Violet Mendelsund/Mayor's Office)


    Earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adams pleaded with the federal government for $500 million in emergency funding to address the “humanitarian crisis” of thousands of migrant asylum seekers who have arrived in New York City in the last few months. But despite the clear health and safety risk to thousands of people, who have the right to shelter under New York law, the crisis is not the type of emergency – like the COVID-19 pandemic or

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  • How to Break Barriers to Build More Housing in New York? Experts Point to Changes

    A ground-breaking (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New York City has an acute housing shortage, with emergency-level lows in apartment vacancies, especially for units affordable to most New Yorkers, and astronomical rents, a homelessness crisis, and halting recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    At the core of the city’s housing supply deficit is a lengthy and cumbersome land use decision-making process, a bureaucratic maze of local and state regulations combined with political dynamics that have often

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  • It's Time to Separate Housing from Politics

    Housing (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    It’s time for New York to depoliticize housing.

    Population growth across the five boroughs has so badly outpaced housing production over the last decade thatthe city needs more than half a million new units by 2030...

  • What's The [Data] Point? $220 Billion, with Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger

    State Senator Liz Krueger (photo: NY Senate Media Services)


    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 117 -- $220 Billion, with State Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger [You can find What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    $220 billion is the reported size of the New York State fiscal year 2023 budget that the Governor and Legislature adopted on April 10. The budget includes a property tax rebate and a tax holiday, and increases State spending about $14 billion, with more money for education aid, day care, rent relief, health care, and a new

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  • Emma Wolfe Reflects on the De Blasio Years

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    Emma Wolfe, to the mayor's right, Mayor de Blasio & others (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    With Bill de Blasio’s tenure coming to an end, one of his top aides is reflecting on the administration’s legacy, defining achievements of its eight years in power, and what she thinks people got wrong about his leadership.

    Emma Wolfe, who has worked as de Blasio’s chief of staff for over a decade, dating to his time as Public Advocate, recently ...

  • What's The [Data] Point? 8, Emma Wolfe on the De Blasio Years

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 113 -- 8, Emma Wolfe on the De Blasio Years[You can listen to or download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including iTunes]

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    Emma Wolfe, Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor for Administration under Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined the show to discuss the de Blasio years. Wolfe has been a top advisor to de

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 47, with NYC Comptroller-Elect Brad Lander

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 112 -- 47, with NYC Comptroller-Elect Brad Lander [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    47 is the number of people who will have held the office of New York Comptroller once Brad Lander is sworn in on January 1, 2022. At a breakfast with CBC Trustees, President Andrew Rein sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with the Comptroller-elect, covering subjects including risks to New York’s budget, contracting reform, rezoning, and

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  • Watchdogs Worry About De Blasio's Last Budget, City’s Fiscal Future

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New York City’s budget has grown massively under Mayor Bill de Blasio and reached a record high of $98.7 billion for the current fiscal year. The latest spending plan, which the mayor dubbed a “recovery budget,” deployed a huge infusion of federal stimulus funds to restore services that were cut at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, to expand existing programs, and launch new initiatives. But despite the mayor’s assurances that his successor, due to take office January 1, will inherit manageable

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $150 Million, Alicia Glen on the Future of Governors Island

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    What's The [Data] Point? $150 Million, Alicia Glen on the Future of Governors Island [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    Alicia Glen, former deputy mayor for housing and economic development and now chair of the Trust for Governors Island, joined the show to discuss the future of Governors Island and more.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think: on Twitter ...

  • What's The [Data] Point? $103.3 billion - The New City Budget, with Comptroller Scott Stringer

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 109: $103.3 billion - the New City Budget, with Comptroller Scott Stringer [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    $103.3 billion is the total amount of spending authorized by the City Council for Fiscal Year 2022. While officials call it a budget of $98.3 billion, the larger figure reflects the full amount to be expended, including $6 billion available from the prior year due to higher than expected tax

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  • Mayor and City Council Reach Agreement on De Blasio's Last Budget, $98.7 Billion ‘Recovery' Plan

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    Mayor and Council Speaker in 2019 (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Wednesday announced an agreement on a $98.7 billion “recovery budget” for the 2022 fiscal year, which begins Thursday.

    The budget, the final one for both de Blasio and Johnson as they reach term limits, was $100 million more than the executive budget that the mayor unveiled in April, flush with billions in

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $209 Billion, Examining The New York State Budget

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 108 -- $209 Billion, Examining The New York State Budget [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    $209 billion is the total amount to be spent this state fiscal year according to New York State's Enacted Budget for Fiscal Year 2022. That massive budget, adopted in early April, was bolstered by immense federal aid and higher than expected tax revenues as New York comes out of the devastation of the covid

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  • City Budget Negotiations and Comptroller Primary Collide

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    Corey Johnson and Brad Lander (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    The war of words between City Council Member Brad Lander and Council Speaker Corey Johnson, both Democratic candidates for city comptroller, continues to escalate as Lander raises concerns that Johnson will leverage the city budget to help his chances of winning the June primary. 

    Johnson and Lander are among the top contenders in the Democratic primary for New York City comptroller, which also features a number of sitting state legislators and several first-time candidates

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  • What's The [DATA] Point? $250 Billion, Democratic Comptroller Candidate Forum

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 107 -- $250 billion [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    $250 billion—the assets held by the five pensions funds for which the New York City Comptroller is custodian, administrator, and investment advisor. But that's not the Comptroller's only

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  • Democratic Comptroller Candidates Pitch Skills and Plans to Budget Watchdog

    Brad Lander, Brian Benjamin, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Corey Johnson, David Weprin, Zach Iscol

    (l-r) Brad Lander, Brian Benjamin, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Corey Johnson, David Weprin, Zach Iscol


    Six leading candidates running in the Democratic primary for New York City Comptroller in the June election appeared at a forum on Tuesday to offer their perspectives on the role of the office, solutions to the city’s uncertain fiscal future, and how they would wield their powers to ensure city government is effective and fiscally responsible. 

    The candidates at the

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 800,000 - New Life for Gateway

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 103 -- 800,000 - New Life for Gateway, with John D. Porcari [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    With President Biden now in office and New York Senator Chuck Schumer as Majority Leader, there is new life for the Gateway Program, a massive set

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  • After Overstating Budget Deficits, Cuomo and De Blasio Get Big Federal Bailout

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    Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have spent many months warning New Yorkers about cratering tax revenues because of the coronavirus pandemic, outlining yawning budget gaps that could force them to make drastic spending cuts to state and city services and lay off thousands of government workers. But while the fiscal future remains uncertain, their worst predictions did not come to pass — revenues were higher than expected and significant federal aid has flowed to New

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  • Mayoral Candidates Flunk First Budget Test

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    Budget work (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)


    Of the endless forums that are being held in the mayoral primary race, the only one that has specifically focused on the City’s fiscal situation and budget was the one last week held by the Citizens Budget Commission, my former organization. (You can watch it here, or read Gotham Gazette’s detailed summary ...

  • What's The [Data] Point? $5.3 Billion, Mayoral Candidates Discuss the City Fiscal Crisis

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 102 -- $5.3 Billion, Mayoral Candidates Discuss the City Fiscal Crisis [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    cbc mayoral forum$5.3 billion is the current estimate of the budget gap the next Mayor will have to close in her/his first year. Ben Max and CBC President Andrew Rein introduce listeners to

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