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Scott Stringer on His ‘Agency Watch List,’ De Blasio’s Housing Plan & Restructuring NYCHA


scott stringer comptroller

Comptroller Scott Stringer and Deputy Comptroller Marjorie Landau (photo: @NYCComptroller)


Comptroller Scott Stringer, the city’s chief fiscal officer who placed three city agencies on a new “watch list” in February due to concerns about their escalating spending and questionable return on investment, said recently that his office will be holding public hearings to provide stronger oversight, better transparency, and more urgency for reforms.

“We need more robust public hearings to the agencies, we need to demand more accountability from our government, and if we’re really going to be a progressive government, we need to ask whether the programs we’re putting forth are meeting the needs of struggling New Yorkers,” Stringer said during a recent appearance on the What’s The [Data] Point? podcast from Gotham Gazette and Citizens Budget Commission. “I’m going to continue to think about ways the comptroller’s office can hold these agencies accountable.”

During the discussion, Stringer not only explained his watch list, but also repeatedly criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio over what Stringer sees as an insufficient affordable housing plan; explained his belief that New York City public housing needs a new management structure; and said that the city is not budgeting responsibly.

As part of his analysis of the city budget, Stringer singled out the Department of Homeless Services, Department of Education, and Department of Correction as agencies whose spending was of most concern, forming his initial “watch list,” which includes a new web portal with detailed information about the three and plans for more robust examination of their spending and effectiveness.

In addition to public hearings, Stringer’s office inspects agencies through audits, investigations, and reports. The comptroller’s office is also responsible for approving contracts that city agencies enter with outside vendors. While Stringer mentioned on the podcast a general plan to hold his own public hearings on the watch list agencies, his office declined to provide more information in response to follow-up questions.

Stringer included the Department of Homeless Services on his watch list after determining that despite citywide spending for homelessness across all agencies more than doubling from $1.1 billion in 2013 to an anticipated $2.6 billion in 2019, the number of individuals living in shelters has grown from 49,000 in 2013 to more than 61,000 in early 2018.  

Stringer said unravelling the homeless crisis in New York City starts with taking accountability for unnecessary expenditures.

“I think we have to look at changing policy and I think we have to look at making sure every dollar counts because if we continue to house people in commercial hotels that cost $100 million and if we continue to stuff people into these terribly conditioned homeless shelters, that’s the core of what we believe in that has to change,” Stringer said. “Budgets are priorities, but you have to be smart about expenditure and analyze whether that money is doing the right thing by the people.”

While Mayor Bill de Blasio has put a variety of plans in place to combat homelessness, it has been one of the central struggles of his time in office. Stringer and de Blasio are both Democrats who were elected to their current positions in 2013 and reelected in 2017. They will both be term-limited out of office at the end of 2021; Stringer is widely expected to run for mayor in the upcoming election cycle.

When resetting his approach to homelessness a second time, in early 2017, de Blasio announced a plan to open 90 new shelters while leaving notoriously troubled cluster site shelter apartments and expensive commercial hotels. He also said the plan, which includes ongoing and enhanced mechanisms like rental subsidies and free lawyers for housing court, would result in a very modest decrease in the homeless population.

"What is the plan to really reduce homelessness?,” Stringer said. “Do not even say to me that, well, ‘our plan is to reduce homelessness by 2,500 in five years.’ At the cost of $3 billion? You’ve got to be kidding me. I mean everybody wake up here."

As for the Department of Education, another “watch list” agency, Stringer’s office has found that the DOE was spending inefficiently and he has questioned its ballooning central staff. In a trial test of eight schools, Comptroller audits found that one third of computer hardware was unaccounted for with no follow-up actions to implement basic controls. Stringer’s staff also discovered that despite a $1 billion investment in high-speed broadband, one in three teachers are still displeased with the service. Moreover, in what Stinger’s office called “a rampant waste and lack of accountability,” $2.7 billion in no-bid contracts were doled out by DOE.

“I don’t want to see a 24% increase in administrative costs at DOE,” Stringer said on the podcast. “I want money to go into the classroom.”

Stringer included the Department of Correction on his watch list in order to highlight increases in spending and violence despite a decrease in inmate populations at city jails. Since 2008, the average daily inmate population dropped from 13,850 to 9,500 in 2017 (and as of July 2, it was just about 8,200). However, the average annual cost to house an inmate more than doubled over that same period. Over the last decade, the number of violent incidents at city jails more than tripled.

“At Department of Correction, this is something amazing, population is going down, but violence is going up,” Stringer said on the podcast. “And now we’re spending $270,000 a year [per inmate] on holding 9,000 inmates on Rikers Island. OK, this is madness.”

The agency watch list relates to overall budgeting by the mayor and the City Council, and to the effectiveness of spending on key city services, as well as how much the city is spending overall, its long-term financial commitments, and its reserves. Mayor de Blasio and the Council recently passed an $89.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2019, which began July 1. The size of the city budget has increased dramatically under de Blasio, and Stringer has been sounding alarm bells all along about the rate of spending, the lack of a recommended savings program that was used under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and potentially insufficient reserves for the inevitable economic downturn.

On the podcast, Stringer said the city’s projected “budget cushion” — reserves as a percentage of city operating expenses — must be bolstered.

“I do think that there’s been a lost opportunity as it relates to putting more money aside for a rainy day,” Stringer said. “And we have now a record budget of $89 billion...I think we are going down a road that could cost us or hurt in the long run.”

The current budget reserves are about 9 percent of projected 2019 spending, about $8.5 billion in reserves, lower than what Stringer says is the optimal range of 12 to 18 percent. The “budget cushion” debate is a long-running one between the mayor and the comptroller. De Blasio has repeatedly stated that the city has “record” reserves, which is true in terms of absolute numbers, but as a percentage of spending, Stringer remains concerned.

Reserves are vital, Stringer explains, because when crisis inevitably hits the city, it often hurts the most vulnerable people, which was was the case after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and after Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, he said. Stringer has called on de Blasio to compel his agency commissioner to “scrub” their departments for savings, recommending the type of program Bloomberg used where he insisted on commissioners identify a certain percentage of their budgets for slashing, even if the cuts were not followed through on. De Blasio has not required this of his agency heads, instead instituting a voluntary savings program.

“Well, let’s go scrub the agencies for efficiencies,” Stringer said on the podcast. “That’s something that hasn’t happened in four years. Lets go agency by agency. Say to commissioners, ‘Look, there’s new technology. You haven’t looked at how to save money in an agency in four years.’ Previous mayors used to scrub those budgets and say, ‘Hold on with those expenses.’ That’s one way to do it. The city, the mayor’s refused to do that, I disagree with him. Get in there, get those savings, put is aside for that rainy day.”

As for de Blasio’s affordable housing plan -- which seeks to build or preserve 300,000 rent-regulated units by 2026 -- Stringer had perhaps his harshest words.

"There’s no real affordable housing plan to meet the needs the poorest New Yorkers," Stringer told podcast hosts Maria Doulis and Ben Max. “[W]e need a robust new housing plan," Stringer said.

"We need to think about a new subsidy program. Problem is, right now, for-profit developers is a lot of cases are, yes, they're building more density, and bigger projects in places in Brooklyn like East New York, but the reality is the affordable housing that they’re proposing, the [affordability] is not reflective of the population of the community, so the affordability is not affordable in the community, and we are gentrifying people out of the communities they built,” Stringer said.

And on the New York City Housing Authority, NYCHA, home to more than 400,000 residents of public housing that is falling apart and in need of more than $30 billion of repairs and upgrades, Stringer said it is time to change the governance model.

"That’s why I said to all who would listen, that we need to change the management structure at NYCHA,” Stringer said on the podcast. “It is abysmal. You’ve got a seven member board that doesn’t know what’s up. You’ve got a Chair, and then a [general] manager -- depending on the politics within NYCHA, one has power, the other one doesn’t, vice versa. Even in this crisis, you know, we don’t have a counsel, a chief financial officer in NYCHA, these positions are going unfilled, there’s no capacity in NYCHA.”

“I mean look, City Hall, wake up, do your part,” Stringer said, to ensure there’s “a structure in place” to oversee spending of billions of dollars and work with the federal monitor that will soon be hired based on a consent decree the city has entered with federal investigators. “But at the end of the day, the monitor doesn’t run it, management runs it, so we need one Chair, one person in charge,” Stringer continued. “Also, this is a time to get private industry involved, let’s get the best in the business from around the city, from all walks of life to begin looking at this amazing challenge before NYCHA falls apart.”

De Blasio’s office declined to respond to the comptroller’s criticisms and proposals.

***
by Jordan Kimmel, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette

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City Council Charter Revision Commission Takes Shape


gg city council hearing committee

(Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette)


The New York City Council’s commission to review the city charter -- a separate effort from an existing commission created by Mayor Bill de Blasio -- has been fully appointed and is set to begin its work next Monday, July 16.

The City Council passed a bill in April, spearheaded by Public Advocate Letitia James, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and Council Speaker Corey Johnson, to create a commission to analyze the city’s governing document and recommend potentially significant changes to the structure and functions of city government. Although any such commission is allowed to consider the entire composition of the city charter, Brewer, James, and Johnson have pointed to a few broad priority areas including improving the city’s land use policies, strengthening the City Council’s ‘advise and consent’ role in approving mayoral appointees to city agencies and commissions, enhancing the Council’s power over city budgeting, and implementing stronger oversight of the mayoral administration.

At a March 17 hearing on the bill, James emphasized that the commission could achieve groundbreaking improvements similar to the 1989 charter commission that upended the entire structure of city government. She contrasted it with the mayor’s approach, which she said suffers from “predetermined conclusions, a narrow focus on issues within Council authority, and a timeline far too tight to do the job right.”

The Council’s commission, composed of 15 members, is meant to carry out its work over the next 16 months, presenting ballot referenda to voters during the November 2019 general election. The mayor’s commission, created by de Blasio through an executive order, has a shorter timeline and a narrower brief, and will be proposing its own recommendations on Election Day this year.

The Council commission’s members include four appointees of the speaker, including the chair, four mayoral appointees, and one each chosen by the public advocate, the comptroller, and the five borough presidents.

Johnson picked Gail Benjamin, the former director of the Council’s land use division, to serve as commission chair. His other appointees include Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former de Blasio deputy mayor and the former chair of NYC Health+Hospitals, the city’s municipal hospital system; Rev. Clinton Miller, pastor at Brown Memorial Baptist Church; and Merryl Tisch, the former chancellor of the state Board of Regents and current vice chair of the SUNY board of trustees.

“The appointment of these members of the Charter Revision Commission is the first step towards bringing the City Charter into the 21st century,” said Johnson in a statement announcing the full commission. “All of these individuals represent civic engagement at its best, and I am so grateful for the time they are giving to make our city a better place…The City Charter is in good hands.”

In a phone interview, Benjamin said she was "excited" about leading the commission. "This is kind of the culmination of my career as a government official,” she said. Benjamin drew a distinction between the work she will oversee and that of the mayor's commission, which is expected to release its preliminary report soon. “This commission has a much broader mandate than the mayor gave to his commission and I think that all of the 15 members who have been appointed are excited about the broadness of the mandate and the ability to really examine how this city functions governmentally and what we can do to move it into the future," she said.   

Though the two commissions will not overlap substantially, Benjamin said the Council's commission will review the testimony presented to the mayor's commission, as well as the reports and testimony from every commission convened since 1989. "There are lots of issues that [the mayor's] commission, I don’t think, has had the time to really flesh out," she said, citing city procurement practices, non-citizen voting and instant run-off voting as a few examples. "I would think that we would want to look at those kinds of issues also and that we’ll have the time to do that because we’ve got over a year and not just a few months," Benjamin said. 

Mayor de Blasio mostly plucked his Council commission appointees from his own administration. Among them are Lisette Camilo, the commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services; Paula Gavin, the city’s Chief Service Officer who heads up NYC Service, the agency tasked with promoting volunteering efforts; Lindsay Greene, a senior advisor to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen; and former City Planning chief Carl Weisbrod, currently a de Blasio appointee to the MTA board.

Most other elected officials had already announced their selections to the commission or had quietly appointed members with little publicity.   

In late May, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams chose former City Council Member and repeat mayoral contender Sal Albanese to represent him, citing Albanese’s outspoken positions on campaign finance reform. “I have called for, and am reiterating again now, for 100 percent publicly-financed campaigns where every candidate has an equal footing to express their ideas,” Adams had written in testimony at the March hearing before the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, which was considering the charter commission bill. “Fully publicly-financed elections will see more women running for office at a time when representation in the City Council has decreased since our last election. Fully publicly-financed campaigns have shown to increase minority participation in elected politics. A fully-funded system also takes away the quid pro quo corruption and will help restore faith in our electoral system.”

Albanese, in a statement accompanying his appointment, said, “Charter revision is an opportunity to make our government more democratic and responsive to its citizens.” During his 2017 primary challenge to de Blasio, Albanese’s top policy plank was the “democracy vouchers” program that would drastically reduce the influence of private money in municipal elections.

Last month, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. appointed former City Council Member James Vacca to the commission. “Jimmy has a wealth of experience in government and cares deeply about our borough and our city,” Diaz Jr. tweeted at the time.

More recently, Public Advocate Letitia James tapped Sateesh Nori, a Legal Aid Society attorney, as her representative on the commission. “Mr. Nori brings with him the wisdom and expertise necessary for the role, as well as a lifelong commitment to public service and to his City,” James said in a statement. Comptroller Scott Stringer’s pick was Alison Hirsh, the vice president of 32BJ SEIU, the prominent property services workers union.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer chose her general counsel and director of land use, James Caras, to serve as her representative. “After three decades, it’s time for a thorough, expert review of how our City Charter is serving New Yorkers and how to make our government work better,” Brewer said in Monday’s announcement.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz picked Eduardo Cordero Sr. And Staten Island Borough President James Oddo’s choice is Richmond County Clerk Stephen Fiala, who was previously a City Council member.

While the Council-created commission is about to begin its work and will take an extended timeline before its ballot proposals are announced next year, the mayoral charter revision commission is in the final two months before it makes its recommendations public by early September, in time to be included on the November ballot. That commission recently made clear its areas of focus -- voting and election reform, campaign finance reform, land use decision-making, community boards, civic engagement, and independent redistricting -- and held relevant expert hearings.

[Read: Chair Says Mayoral Charter Commission Will Step In Where Politics Has Slowed Reform]

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

Read more by this writer.

The Week Ahead in New York Politics, July 9


New York City Hall

New York City Hall


What to watch for this week in New York politics:

As we move past the July Fourth holiday week and into the depths of summer, attention turns squarely to the state-level primary elections that will be voted on September 13. We're just over two months away from those votes, with especially interesting Democratic races for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and a number of state legislative seats, especially in the state Senate, most notably the primary challenges to the senators who until April made up the Independent Democratic Conference. We'll know more soon about challengers' efforts to garner enough ballot petition signatures to appear on the September ballot, as those are due to the Board of Elections this week.

While Governor Andrew Cuomo, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul and party designee for Attorney General Letitia James were all guaranteed ballot spots becaue of the party convention vote, candidates including Cynthia Nixon, Jumaane Williams, Zephyr Teachout, Leecia Eve, Sean Patrick Maloney, and others had to collect signatures to get their names on the ballot.

We'll also know more this week and into the following about how candidates are doing with raising money, as there is an important filing deadline this week.

Continuing this week are two major federal corruption trials involving state government. One is headlined by Alain Kaloyeros, former president of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, who Governor Cuomo empowered to run major economic development projects and is accused of rigging bids to favor Cuomo donors. The other is the retrial of former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

Mayor Bill de Blasio returns from a week of (mostly) vacation this week (he briefly flew home to attend a street renaming ceremony for a police officer, Miosotis Familia, killed in the line of duty last ear). There are two major land use decisions coming up that the administration is deeply invested in and worth watching as final negotiations unfold over the coming weeks: efforts to rezone part of Inwood and the rezoning plan to build a tech center in Union Square. Both proposals are still being negotiated with other stakeholders, especially the local City Council members, who will ultimately have significant say over the final details of deals that are reached or over the defeat of the proposals. There is a Tuesday Council hearing on each.

See the day-by-day rundown for the week below -- and check back as we update The Week Ahead from Sunday night through Monday night as additional events are publicized and advised by elected officials, candidates, advocacy groups, and others.

 ***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Monday
This week’s Max & Murphy podcast from Gotham Gazette and City Limits will be recorded and published Monday and will feature Democratic Attorney General candidate Zephyr Teachout.

On Monday at 10:30 a.m. in Jackson Heights, Democratic candidate for governor Cynthia Nixon and state Senate candidate Jessica Ramos will endorse each other. Nixon is attempting to defeat Governor Cuomo and Ramos is attempting to defeat Senator Jose Peralta, a former member of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC, in the September Democratic primaries.

At 2 p.m. Monday, Governor Cuomo will make an announcement at Manny Cantor Center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will be in attendance.

Mayor de Blasio will make his usual weekly appearance on NY1's Inside City Hall Monday in the 7 and 11 p.m. hours.

Tuesday
Governor Cuomo will hold two Tuesday rallies "to protect reproductive rights." One at 10 a.m. in Yonkers and one at 11:30 a.m. in New Hyde Park.

At 11 a.m. Tuesday outside Grand Central Terminal, leading transit advocacy groups will release the agenda they will urge state-level candidates to adopt this election season. "During a busy campaign season for the governor and state legislature, the city's leading transportation advocacy organizations will unveil for the first time a comprehensive state policy agenda. Highlighting the relationship between transportation and equity, the advocates will encourage candidates for state office to fund badly needed transit improvements with a fair, sustainable and sufficient source of revenue that it's up to state government officials to create. The advocates' 2018 state policy agenda includes funding and implementing the MTA's Fast Forward plan to fix the subway, redesign the bus network, and make transit accessible, adopting the state's Fix NYC panel proposal to raise transit funds by charging cars and trucks to drive in the Manhattan central business district, and enacting fully automated camera enforcement of traffic signals, speed and bus lane restrictions." Participants will include "Leaders and members of transit, environmental and disability rights organizations including the Riders Alliance, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, New York League of Conservation Voters, Regional Plan Association, NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, StreetsPAC, Transportation Alternatives, and Tri-State Transportation Campaign."

At 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, "Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner O’Neill will hold a media availability on crime statistics. This event is open press. There will be Q-and-A." The event will take place at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx.

"On Tuesday, the First Lady will attend the Gracie Mansion Board of Advisors meeting. This event is closed press."

At noon Tuesday there will be a rally in Foley Square opposing President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Public Advocate Letitia James will be among those speaking.

At the City Council on Tuesday: The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m. and at 1:30 p.m. The committee will hear testimony on the plan to rezone an area in Union Square during the morning meeting and on the plan for part of Inwood during the afternoon meeting. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer will testify at both hearings.

At noon on Tuesday, before the Inwood rezoning vote, "Upper Manhattan tenants, faith leaders, workers and small business owners will hold a rally outside City Hall as the New York City Council prepares to hold a hearing on the proposed Inwood NYC neighborhood rezoning. The rezoning has received considerable opposition from the community and local elected officials, with both Manhattan Community Board 12 and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer voting against the proposal at earlier stages in the land use process." Participants will include "Northern Manhattan Is Not For Sale, Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association, Ft. Washington Collegiate Church, Uptown Community Democrats, Laborers Local 79, Northern Manhattan Community Land Trust, Save Inwood Library, the Inwood Small Business Coalition/Coalicion de Pequenas Empresas de Inwood, Metropolitan Council on Housing, Altagracia Faith & Justice Works, NY State Ironworkers District Council, NYC Community Alliance for Workers Justice, United Auto Merchants, Moving Forward Unidos, Lower Seaman Tenants Association and Inwood Preservation."

At 9 a.m. Tuesday, the New York City Board of Correction will hold a public meeting at 125 Worth Street in Manhattan.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 3 will be opened by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, U.S. Rep Nydia Velazquez, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, Senator Brian Kavanagh, City Council Member Stephen Levin, and Brooklyn Bridge Park President Eric Landau.

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Four Freedoms Democratic Club will host a forum on the state of the subway “and what can be done to remedy it.” Speakers will include City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, Charles Komanoff of Transportation Alternatives, and Stephen Smith of Market Urbanism.

Wednesday
This week’s What’s The [Data] Point? podcast from Gotham Gazette and Citizens Budget Commission will be recorded and published on Wednesday and will feature city Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Civilian Complaint Review Board will meet at the McKinley Community Center in Morrisania, Bronx.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Democratic candidates for Attorney General will participate in a forum hosted by seven Democratic clubs at the New York New Church in Murray Hill.

Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday: The Committees on Health, Immigration, and General Welfare will meet jointly at 2 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “the impacts of Trump administration family separation policy on New York City,” and to discuss a resolution “calling on the U.S. Congress to pass, and the President to sign, the Keep Families Together Act (S. 3036), to immediately stop the Department of Homeland Security from taking children from their parents at the U.S. border, except with express directive from a child welfare expert, and for additional legislation that would end family detention as an unsafe and harmful alternative.”

Friday and the weekend
Mayor de Blasio may make his usual appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show on Friday at 10 a.m.

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette



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