Gotham Gazette

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City Budget

City Budget

  • City Council Response to De Blasio Budget Includes Investment in Workers, Cut to ThriveNYC, & Ferry Spending Transparency

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    The Mayor and the Council in a budget briefing (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    The City Council on Tuesday released its response to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fiscal year 2020 preliminary budget, calling its own outline “a fiscally responsible plan that safeguards the city’s financial future and secures the city’s social safety net for New Yorkers.” Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Council members are calling for additional reserves and targeted investments, while also saying they’ve identified roughly $1 billion in savings

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  • Invest in City Parks to Improve Our Public Spaces and Save the Environment

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    (photo: @RiversideParkNY)


    Parks are an essential part of any city’s infrastructure. Getting into nature at an urban park lowers stress, eases depression, and fosters happiness. Parks help build community - people get out and meet each other, kids play together, mothers talk, residents meet neighbors.

    Parks are particularly invaluable in New York City, the nation’s

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  • Preliminary Budget Hearings End with City Council Clamor for More Detail on Agency Cuts

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    OMB Director Hartzog testifies (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    As usual, the City Council’s March agenda was mostly dominated by preliminary budget hearings, evaluating the mayor’s initial spending plan for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. This stage of the city budget process started and finished with a general hearing held by the Council’s Finance Committee, along with its Capital Budget Subcommittee, with a series of more specific agency- and service-related hearings in between.

    The preliminary budget hearings finished where

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  • City’s Flawed Capital Project Process the Subject of Renewed Scrutiny, and Some Reform

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    (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


    Many New Yorkers know the city has trouble completing construction projects on time and under budget. Projects like school renovations and the build-out of park facilities are capital projects, the subject of increasing scrutiny and some reform, with more promised, as frustrations persist and residents, watchdogs, lawmakers, and other city leaders seek answers.

    Top officials from the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to Comptroller Scott Stringer have taken a fresh

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  • Charter Revision Commission Needs a Hippocratic Oath

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    (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    The entire New York City Charter, the city's foundational governing document, is on the operating table, and it is essential that the surgeons act with extreme caution.

    On March 7 I testified before the Charter Revision Commission created at the initiative of City Council Speaker Johnson, former Public Advocate James, and Manhattan Borough President Brewer. Charter revision can be a very wonky, technical topic, but the Charter is our city’s constitution and any changes made to it can have a significant,

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  • Charter Revision Commission Hears Expert Testimony on City Budgeting and Contracting

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     (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayoral Photo Office)


    The 2019 Charter Revision Commission, which is looking at ways to improve the city’s central governing document, heard suggestions on Monday from community-based organizations, fiscal watchdogs, and former and current city officials about potential changes to the city’s byzantine budgeting process.

    Over the course of more than three hours, experts weighed in on the city’s flawed contract procurement system, the severe lack of transparency in spending on capital projects, the possibility of creating a rainy day fund for the city, and

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  • Library Presidents Seek Additional Funds at City Council Budget Hearing

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    Library rally before the Council hearing (photo: @NYCLibraries)


    The presidents of the city’s three public library systems on Monday requested from the City Council an additional $35 million in operating support and $15 million in capital funding, allowing the libraries to maintain and expand collections, hire more workers, fund more programming, make necessary building repairs and expansions, and respond to emergencies.

    Mayor Bill de Blasio’s preliminary budget proposes a $388.8 million subsidy for the public library systems, which are

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  • With Williams in Office, Will Public Advocate Get Budget Boost?

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    Jumaane Williams (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    Jumaane Williams, the City Council member elected public advocate in a special election last month, has vowed a renewed push for increased funding and an independent budget to bolster the meager resources of the office he now occupies.

    Over the course of the six-week long special election that Williams won, virtually all of the 17 candidates who were on the ballot argued that the public advocate’s office needs more funding. One of just three elected

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  • Council Examines CUNY Budget, City Funding for Community Colleges

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    Council Member Inez Barron (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    City Council members on Thursday questioned administrators for the City University of New York as part of a preliminary budget hearing regarding the public university system, which is funded through a variety of sources including city, state, and federal dollars, as well as tuition.

    The hearing was helmed by Higher Education Committee Chair Inez Barron, who represents parts of Brooklyn, is a Hunter College graduate and former public school teacher, and has ...

  • City Council Pushes on De Blasio Savings Program During First Budget Hearing

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    (Photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    City Council Speaker Corey Johnson appeared frustrated on Wednesday with the de Blasio administration budget at the Council’s first hearing to examine the mayor’s $92.2 billion preliminary budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, which begins July 1 of this year.

    Mayor Bill de Blasio released his preliminary budget proposal last month ...

  • Calling for More Savings, Stringer Releases Analysis of De Blasio Budget Plan

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    Comptroller Stringer


    New York Comptroller Scott Stringer released on Friday his analysis of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s preliminary budget for fiscal year 2020, which begins July 1 of this year. De Blasio had presented a $92.2 billion budget plan on Feb. 7, 2019, the first step of many that will lead to a budget deal between de Blasio and the City Council. As comptroller, Stringer is tasked with budget oversight and monitoring the city’s fiscal health.

    During his presentation at his Manhattan office, Stringer expressed concern over de Blasio’s

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  • A Fairer New York City Requires Salary Parity for the Early Childhood Workforce

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    (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayor's Office)


    At his State of the City address, Mayor de Blasio pointed to the expansion of universal prekindergarten for New York City four-year-olds and the expansion of 3-K as an integral part of his administration’s commitment to making New York City “the fairest big city in the country.”

    While listening to the mayor’s speech – and the attention he paid to the success of universal pre-K and the new 3-K expansion – child advocates and educators in the audience found ourselves wanting to shout out ‘Salary parity now!’

    To date, the

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  • In Budget Testimony, De Blasio Critiques Cuomo Plans, Presents City Albany Agenda

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


    Mayor Bill de Blasio received a warmer reception in Albany on Monday than he has in past years as he testified before the state Legislature on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 executive budget proposal and how it would affect New York City. Over the course of more than two hours, the mayor argued for more education funding, emphasized the need for a comprehensive revenue plan for the MTA, enlisted legislators to help fend off proposed funding cuts and costs shifts, and defended his

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $92.2 Billion, Mayor de Blasio's Preliminary Budget

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 65 -- $92.2 billion, Mayor de Blasio's Preliminary Budget, with Sally Goldenberg [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Mayor de Blasio released his $92.2 billion preliminary budget plan for fiscal year 2020, which begins July 1 of this year, and Sally Goldenberg of

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  • Citing Causes for Concern & Promising Cuts, De Blasio Presents Still-Growing Budget Plan of $92.2 Billion

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    Mayor de Blasio presents his budget (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    When Mayor Bill de Blasio presented his preliminary budget proposal last year, he issued solemn warnings about the threats posed by cuts in the state budget and from federal maneuvers that could mean fewer resources for the city. On Thursday, de Blasio repeated that message, but in more dire terms, as he unveiled a $92.2

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  • Imagining an ‘Asset Light’ Sanitation Department

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Recent news that the New York City Department of Sanitation had its trucks evicted from a Chelsea garage on West 30th Street and will now park them on a side street near Manhattan’s Bellevue South Park should raise a question: why does Sanitation need to garage its trucks in the first place? It's not as if sanitation trucks are Lamborghinis requiring careful protection or 1970s era Jaguars

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  • Agenda 2019: City & State Budgets on Mostly Solid Ground, with Major Questions Looming

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    Gov. Cuomo (photo: The Governor's Office)


    This is part of AGENDA 2019, a joint Gotham Gazette-City Limits project
    Find the rest of the series here

    New York’s economy has seen several rosy years in the decade since the Great Recession, with a run of steady growth, increasing

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $225 million, with Comptroller Scott Stringer

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 44 -- $225 million, with Comptroller Scott Stringer [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    City

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  • City Council Push for Budget Transparency Falls Far Short

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    Johnson, de Blasio, Dromm (l-r) (photo: John McCarten)


    At several budget hearings earlier this year, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson took a hard line on transparency. He insisted that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration was being less than forthcoming on how money is spent and was hampering the Council’s charter-mandated authority to review and approve the city’s spending plan. To wit, in its official response to the mayor’s preliminary budget in April, the Council proposed adding 123 new units of appropriation -- budget lines that explain

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  • Added Scrutiny of City’s Delinquent Contracting Practices

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    Council Member Levin (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    The new city budget does not do enough to address the tremendous backlog of city contracts with nonprofit groups that have been left languishing by city agencies, the groups say. This comes after a recent report from the city comptroller that shows

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  • A Supportive Housing Victory, and Much More To Do

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    Council Members Levin & Salamanca, the authors, foreground (photo: Jeff Reed)


    New York City is facing a crisis. There are more than 60,000 homeless individuals living in the city shelter system daily, and thousands more in shelters for survivors of domestic violence, youth, and those living with HIV/AIDS. An additional estimated 4,000 New Yorkers sleep on the streets each night. And according to the Coalition for the Homeless, the number of homeless

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  • City Council Allocates Discretionary Funding, with Significant Increase for the Speaker

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    Speaker Corey Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    The New York City Council increased the funding it distributes to local nonprofits and for Council members’ favored projects in their districts to $66.4 million for next fiscal year, which begins July 1, an increase of about $5 million, which largely went to initiatives sponsored by Speaker Corey Johnson. The money is part of the larger $89.2 billion budget

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  • De Blasio and City Council Agree on $89.2 Billion Budget, Funding Key Council Priorities

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    De Blasio & Johnson shake on it (photo: William Alatriste)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Monday announced an agreement on an $89.15 billion budget for the 2019 fiscal year that includes key Council priorities that the mayor had been hesitant to fund for months.

    “This budget is profoundly responsible, it is balanced, it is progressive and it is early,” de Blasio said at the ceremonial budget handshake with Johnson and other Council members at City Hall on Monday evening, about three weeks before the

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  • Three City Council Members Don't Support 'Fair Fares'

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    Speaker Johnson on the subway (photo via City Council)


    A budget proposal to provide half-priced MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers has the New York City Council’s full weight this year. Well, almost.

    Only three City Council Members -- Joe Borelli, Steven Matteo, and Ruben Diaz, Sr. -- in the 51-member body have so far declined to support Fair Fares, the proposal that would cost the city about $212 million to offer discounted fares to nearly 800,000 city residents living below the federal poverty line.

    City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has

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  • For 34,000 Children and Their Parents, A Summer of Uncertainty and More At Stake

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    (photo via the Mayor's Office)


    In the Fall of 2014, New York City took an important step forward with the rollout of universal after-school for all public middle school students. SONYC, or School’s Out NYC, provides 6th, 7th and 8th graders with a foundation for success by offering opportunities, beyond the traditional learning settings of a classroom, that allow them to explore their interests and abilities in sports and arts and youth leadership and more.

    Mayor de Blasio said in his announcement at the time that “Middle school is

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