Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

CITY

City

Comptroller Criticizes Mayor for 'Out Of Control' Homelessness Spending, Limited Agency Savings


stringer 2

Comptroller Scott Stringer presents his budget analysis (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)


Comptroller Scott Stringer blasted aspects of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s preliminary budget for fiscal year 2018 on Wednesday, taking issue with the mayor’s homelessness strategy and what Stringer described as a dearth of savings for city agencies.

Speaking to reporters at his offices on 1 Center Street, the comptroller said the city’s economy continues to be strong but warned of the challenges from an economic slowdown after years of sustained growth, the effects of which are already being felt. The risks are especially high, he said, with President Donald Trump’s threats of funding cuts to the city and the inadequate cushion of city reserves.

The comptroller, a frequent critic of the mayor who may challenge de Blasio on the ballot, was most critical of the administration’s spending on homelessness with little to show in the way of results. “The lack of progress for our homeless families and failure to change the status quo is deeply concerning to me and to all New Yorkers,” he said. “The crisis is growing, it is not receding.”

The city has seen an explosion in homelessness over the last three years, with the number of homeless people in the shelter system crossing 60,000 late last year. In the 2017 fiscal year, ending June 30, the city will have spent $2.3 billion on tackling the issue, up from $1.17 billion in fiscal year 2014, the comptroller estimated. The revised budget for the Department of Homeless Services alone is $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2017, an increase of more than 390 million since the budget was originally adopted. Mayor de Blasio, in his State of the City speech on Monday, briefly acknowledged that his administration has more to do on tackling homelessness, but provided no details, promising to address it in the coming days.

The comptroller, in his presentation, questioned that lack of a cohesive policy, stressing that City Hall has not been forthcoming with data or progress reports. He noted that the Department of Homeless Services online dashboard has not been updated in over a year. In particular, he faulted the administration’s “out of control” spending on emergency shelters at commercial hotels, which reached $102 million in the 2016 calendar year. “We need transparency people, we need to understand this so we can actually get to the root of the crisis because we can’t spend blindly without seeing results,” he said.

Stringer also emphasized that the city needs to increase its savings and reserves by identifying greater efficiencies in city agencies. Under de Blasio, agencies have voluntarily identified savings each year through the Citywide Savings Program. Stringer supports the program, which saved $2.1 billion this year, but said the scope of savings is insufficient. “City agencies must do more to scrub their budgets and operations to identify more savings and efficiencies to help address our risks,” he said, pointing out that prior to 2014, agencies contributed 2.7 percent on average to the city’s savings in a year, compared to 1 percent under Mayor de Blasio. “The more they scrub, the more they’ll save,” he said.

These reserves will be particularly crucial if the Trump administration should follow through on its proposed cuts to sanctuary city funding, the comptroller pointed out. New York City could lose as much as $7 billion, which would “rip up our social safety net,” Stringer said. Overall, he insists that the city’s budget cushion -- the reserves and surplus funds at the beginning of the fiscal year -- should be between 12 and 18 percent of city expenditures. Currently, the city has a cushion of only $8.5 billion or 10 percent for fiscal year 2018.

Stringer did praise the mayor for initiatives in the budget that he has supported, including funding for 300 new school crossing guards, providing bullet-resistant windows for all NYPD patrol cars and committing $1 billion for roof repairs at 729 NYCHA buildings.

Stringer’s criticism wasn’t just limited to the mayor’s preliminary budget. Asked about de Blasio’s State of the City commitment to create 100,000 jobs over the next ten years, Stringer said, “I don’t think people truly understood what he was talking about,” noting that the city had created 90,000 jobs a year on average since 2009.

“We do that yearly,” he said. “To talk about a plan over ten years to create 100,000 jobs, to do that over 10 years is just an empty promise and it’s certainly not enough...It makes no sense in my view.” He recommended a “holistic” approach to job creation, by addressing homelessness, building affordable housing and pushing economic development through investments in women- and minority-owned businesses.

Mayoral spokesperson Eric Phillips sharply rebuked the comptroller’s broad critique. “The comptroller has criticized universal pre-K, equipping officers with body cameras, unprecedented highs in affordable housing and job creation, a balanced budget with record savings, and sweeping investments in homelessness prevention,” Phillips said, in a statement. “City Hall shares the public’s wonderment at what exactly the Comptroller's fighting for.”

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

Read more by this writer.

De Blasio Focuses on Affordability Crisis in State of the City Speech


De Blasio at State of the City

Mayor de Blasio delivers State of the City speech (Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


At his fourth State of the City speech on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared an ambitious agenda to create thousands of jobs while continuing to expand affordable housing for the city’s most vulnerable residents.

Speaking at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem, de Blasio acknowledged in blunt terms that New York City is facing an affordability crisis that has been years in the making, resulting from rising rents and relatively stagnant incomes. “This affordability crisis threatens who we are, threatens the very soul of this city,” he said, stressing the need for his administration to do more to alleviate the economic anxiety felt across the city.

The mayor chose initially to forego his traditional style of rattling off key initiatives under the umbrella of his larger agenda, instead delivering an overall sobering message that the city’s successes from the last three years have not been felt equally among all its residents. Although he touted the progress of his affordable housing plan, which has so far financed and preserved more than 62,500 units of housing, he said the city also needs to ensure that incomes are keeping apace. “Everything we've been doing so far is necessary,” de Blasio said. “I believe it's right. But it's not sufficient...We have to now focus on the other half of the equation. We have to drive up incomes.”

His proposed solution was a broad plan to create 100,000 “permanent good-paying” jobs over the next ten years, with 40,000 created in the next four years. Some of this promised growth will come from plans already underway, the mayor said, including 9,000 jobs in the life sciences industry and 10,000 jobs created through the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

He also announced two new major initiatives. The city will invest $136 million to create a “Made in NY” manufacturing center for the fashion, film and food industry in Sunset Park. Construction on the campus will begin next year and by the time it is completed in 2020, it will create 1,500 permanent jobs and 543 temporary positions. De Blasio also pledged $2.6 billion over the next decade to retrofit public buildings with eco-friendly infrastructure, which he estimated will create about 30,000 construction jobs.

In last year’s State of the City speech, de Blasio seemed largely optimistic that the city was on the right track. On Monday, however, he noted that his administration’s major achievements from the last three years -- record-low crime levels, record-high school graduation rates and the implementation of universal prekindergarten for roughly 70,000 children, to name a few -- were “overshadowed” by the continuous struggle many New Yorkers face in an increasingly unaffordable city.

The speech struck a tone similar to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address last month, which focused on a middle class left behind in the state’s economic recovery since the Great Recession. The mayor similarly noted the economic “pain” that punctuated the national discourse during the 2016 presidential election and is still being felt by the public. He promised to directly address that prevailing sentiment while standing up to potentially harmful federal policies. “There's a lot of people in the city right now who fear for what's happening, and they fear that Washington won't have their back, that Washington is against them,” he said. “I want to say clearly to all of them, New York City will have your back.”

A few of the big initiatives the mayor mentioned include measures of housing affordability that were announced in the lead up to Monday’s speech and are meant to work in lockstep with the administration’s focus on creating jobs. These include a $1.9 billion capital fund commitment over the next seven years to provide 10,000 more units of affordable housing for New Yorkers making less than $40,000 a year. Half these homes will be dedicated to seniors and 500 will be set aside for veterans. The mayor also pushed his proposal of a Mansion Tax, a 2.5 percent levy on the sale of homes costing $2 million and more, which he said would raise $336 million in revenue that the city could use to subsidize rents for 25,000 seniors. The tax would require authorization from the state Legislature.

A third initiative, announced jointly with the City Council, is a program to provide universal access to legal services for tenants in housing court, with free representation for low-income New Yorkers earning below $50,000 a year. The city will allocate $15 million to the program in the 2018 fiscal year, increasing it to $93 million by fiscal year 2022, in addition to an existing $62 million yearly commitment to anti-eviction legal services. De Blasio also promised further policy announcements on homelessness, the opioid epidemic and traffic congestion in the new few weeks.

The mayor’s broad overtures to New Yorkers during a time of uncertainty at the national level are likely to carry forward as he begins to campaign in earnest for a second term. His chances of reelection remain strong with just under half of likely voters approving of his performance in a recent Quinnipiac University poll, a number that has slowly improved over the last few months. He also has few primary challengers, although that may change if there are any major developments in the ongoing state and federal investigations into his administration and his fundraising practices. The mayor maintains that his behavior and that of his associates did not violate the law, and none of them have been charged with a crime.

On Monday, de Blasio’s speech was reminiscent of his first campaign. “The message to the people of the city is, this is your city,” he said. “It's not something that belongs to those who happen to be most advantaged. It belongs to the people who made it great. It belongs to the people who built it. It belongs to the people who gave it its character, its culture, its heart and its soul.”

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

Read more by this writer.

'Fair Fares' Proposal Dominates Transportation Hearing


CM Ydanis Rodriguez

Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez (Photo: William Alatriste)


A campaign to provide discounted MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers took center stage at a City Council hearing on Monday, with council members and transit advocates calling for greater equity in the public transportation system.

The City Council’s Committee on Transportation conducted oversight of the Department of Transportation’s citywide initiatives to examine how they can better serve New York City residents. Central to the proceedings was the issue of transportation equity, the concept that transportation should be used as an equalizer and a conduit between low-income communities and the job-laden business centers of the city. Council members and transit advocacy groups expressed concern that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has failed to prioritize fairness in the system, even as it moves forward on a number of transit projects including the citywide ferry service and the Brooklyn-Queens Connector.

The issue that dominated the debate was the 'Fair Fares' campaign to lower public transportation fares for low-income New Yorkers, launched last year by the Community Service Society, a nonprofit that fights poverty, and transit advocacy group Riders Alliance. The campaign is anchored in a 2016 report by CSS that found that 1-in-4 low-income city residents cannot afford the cost of MetroCards. As previously reported by Gotham Gazette, the mayor has been staunch in his refusal to put up the estimated $200 million to implement the cost reductions proposed by Fair Fares, which would provide half-price MetroCards for the roughly 800,000 New Yorkers living below the poverty line.

Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, chair of the committee, said in his opening remarks that MetroCard costs were “preventative” for many New Yorkers, forcing them to “forego job opportunities, education, cultural experiences, doctor appointments, and more.” Rodriguez found support in other council members, including David Greenfield, Antonio Reynoso, and Donovan Richards. Just prior to the hearing, many of the council members rallied with colleagues, transit advocates and union representatives on the steps of City Hall, calling on the mayor to fund the Fair Fares proposal.

At the hearing, the council members asked DOT representative Eric Beaton to explain the mayor’s refusal to provide the required funding in the city budget. Beaton fell back on the mayor’s argument that the city could not afford the proposal and that the state-run MTA should fund it instead. He also pointed out that the city recently committed to a historically-high $2.5 billion contribution to the MTA’s capital plan and that there was simply no room in the budget for an extra $200 million.

Councilmembers Reynoso and Greenfield weren’t satisfied with the response, and Greenfield cited the $13 billion increase in the city budget under de Blasio as proof that the administration has the ability to cover “everything under the sun.” Reynoso echoed his sentiment, telling Beaton that the budget “is not a legitimate excuse” for failing to provide low-income New Yorkers with affordable public transportation.

The committee also touched on issues of transit access for residents of Far Rockaway and Southeast Queens, two areas notorious for their status as “transportation deserts.” Council members Richards and I. Daneek Miller, who represent those two neighborhoods respectively, stressed that their constituents are burdened with commutes of up to two hours, arguing that bus services in areas lacking subway stops must be made a priority so that residents are able to make the commute to Manhattan. Though Beaton agreed that bus efficiency must be improved, he again deferred to the MTA, saying that bus routing was the MTA’s responsibility.

David Jones, president of the Community Service Society and a mayoral appointee to the MTA board, pressed his organization’s push for Fair Fares, noting that unaffordable transit fares also create ancillary problems such as an increase in fare evasion, placing an added burden on the transit police and criminal justice system. These arrests lead to more criminal records for young people, Jones contended, simply because subway and bus fares are too expensive. Jones and Veronica Vanterpool, another MTA board member, have both called on the mayor to fund Fair Fares.

Jones was joined on the panel by Bronx resident Norma Ridez, who testified on behalf of Riders Alliance. Ridez, an unemployed single mother of three, said that between the cost of getting her children to daycare and grocery shopping, she “can’t afford a metrocard to get to [job] interviews.”

Though DOT’s Beaton and the committee members were frequently at odds, the two sides were momentarily allied in admonishing the MTA for failing to send a representative to the hearing. Public Advocate Letitia James was particularly critical, in both her opening and closing statements, expressing her “deep disappointment” that MTA representatives were not present to discuss their “unreliable system.”

Monday’s hearing and the preceding rally demonstrate wide-ranging support for transit affordability reform, but the fate of Fair Fares remains uncertain since neither the city nor the MTA are willing to be held responsible for the bill. MTA communications director Beth DeFalco noted in an email that the MTA already spends significant amounts on low-income riders, including $625 million specifically for seniors, schoolchildren and people with disabilities in New York City. “The MTA always tries to keep fares as low as possible and still provide safe, reliable service,” DeFalco said.

With no end in sight to the Fair Fares gridlock, low-income New Yorkers are left holding their breath on lower transportation costs. Attempting to underscore the impact of this funding stalemate, Councilmember Greenfield reminded those at the hearing, “You can’t get out of poverty if you can’t get to your job.”

 

***
by Luke Foley, Gotham Gazette

With reporting by Samar Khurshid



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years