Council Member Ben Kallos (Photo: William Alatriste/New York City Council)
A critical study by a fiscal watchdog on the city’s annual performance report has led to renewed calls for city agencies to base their budgets on the efficiency of services.
The Citizens Budget Commission, an independent nonprofit, released an analysis earlier this month of the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), a detailed survey of city agencies and their functioning which the Mayor's Office of Operations puts out twice a year. The preliminary version of the report, the PMMR, covering the first four months of the 2017 fiscal year, was released last Monday and will be followed by the full MMR in September.
The MMR contains performance evaluations of 44 city agencies, helping the city improve the efficiency and delivery of services and helping the public keep the administration accountable. Elected officials rely on the reports to conduct oversight of agencies, citing them in annual budget hearings.
CBC’s report notes, however, that while the MMR has thousands of indicators related to the “volume or quality” of services, there is little examination of efficiency through unit-cost measures, which gauge the city’s spending on each unit of service. “Unit cost indicators enhance accountability, inform operational changes, and highlight ways to increase efficiency,” the report reads.
The city’s already limited use of unit cost indicators has declined, according to the CBC’s analysis, and in last year’s MMR for fiscal year 2016, only 10 agencies reported a total of 35 unit cost indicators out of more than 2,000 metrics tracked by the city. These include, for instance, the cost to the Fire Department per ambulance tour per day, which grew from $1,799 in fiscal year 2012 to $1,937 in 2016, a 7.7 percent increase. In the same period, the average cost for the Department of Citywide Services to train a city employee fell 56 percent from $253 to $112. The report points out that the city can easily create more such unit cost indicators with current data and recommends steps to implement those measures across city agencies, including aligning units of appropriation with specific services and linking service quality with cost and efficiency.
“While the MMR provides thousands of indicators, the report is short on indicators that assess the efficiency of city government operations,” said Ana Champeny, director of city studies, CBC, in an email. “The City should develop more unit-cost measures that could support agencies in making their operations more cost-efficient.”
Elected officials and good government advocates have long been pushing for an improved MMR, calling for increasing the number of indicators and clarifying how agencies measure their performance. Last year, at an April oversight hearing on the MMR held by the City Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, many of those concerns were raised, including the need to link agency funding with performance.
Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the governmental operations committee, has been pushing the city to do better for years and, at his request, the latest reports now show spending information by general categories of appropriation. But, he points out, the report still fails to connect budgeting with agency goals, despite being mandated by the city charter. “The MMR should be treated as an investment document,” Kallos said in a phone interview, “and spending should be tied to specific programmatic performance goals so New York City residents know how their tax dollars are being spent and can advocate for them to be increased or decreased.”
He noted, for instance, that the PMMR shows more homeless families and individuals entering the system than in previous years, as reflective of the city’s homelessness crisis. At the same time, it also shows fewer adults exiting permanent supportive housing than before. “If we have performance budgeting, the mayor would have to say he’s spending certain amounts of money to improve that number,” Kallos said. “We would be able to tie the amount of spending to that number and we’d be able to understand what the barrier is and possibly solve it with more funding.”
Government reform groups have argued that the city has improved the MMR but has been slow to institute certain common sense changes that have been recommended for years. “[The MMR] was a huge leap forward when it was first introduced forty years ago,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, and co-chair and founder of the New York City Transparency Working Group. “It is basically obsolete. It needs to evolve so the public, the City Council and the mayor himself can tell how city agencies are doing.”
Pushing for a more comprehensive MMR, Kaehny said, would be consistent with the city’s reputation as a national leader in areas of open governance and transparency. He also believes that the charter’s mandate, to make MMR goals linked to the budget, is more realistic now than it has ever been, with the ubiquity of data and the means to compute it in the digital age. “This is a logical evolution of the MMR,” he said, although pointing out that city agencies and public sector unions may be wary of such scrutiny. “This would really put them under a microscope, it would show trends citywide and show how efficient the city can provide services over private entities.”
Mindy Tarlow, director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations, said in a statement to Gotham Gazette that the city’s public reporting of data on delivery of services has been more comprehensive and transparent “than any other major urban jurisdiction in the country” for the last forty years. “We continue to work closely with our colleagues at the Office of Management and Budget to further align performance and spending,” she said.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
With reporting by Ben Max.
Comptroller Scott Stringer (photo: @scottmstringer)
In his testimony before the New York State Legislature last week on the state’s proposed budget for 2018, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer called for the expansion of a tax credit that could potentially pull thousands of New York City residents out of poverty, continuing a push he began last year when he first floated the idea.
The centerpiece of Stringer’s proposal is to triple the city’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a refundable tax benefit aimed at working families that functions on federal, state and city levels. The credit, which incentivizes employment, grants individuals and couples who qualify anywhere between several hundred and a few thousand dollars, depending on the number of children they have. New York state matches up to 30 percent of the federal EITC and the city matches another 5 percent. Stringer’s proposal would see the city’s contribution increase to 15 percent. It would require state lawmakers to authorize the city to expand its tax credit and would need the City Council to pass legislation, and it would have to be funded in the city budget.
“Tripling the City’s earned income tax credit puts money in the pockets of those who need it most,” said Stringer, in a statement to Gotham Gazette, noting that one-fifth of New Yorkers live below the poverty line. “It’s one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in America, and an expansion would have extraordinary benefits across the five boroughs. It would stimulate our economy, boost small businesses, and support local communities. Most importantly, it’s the right thing to do at a time when so many working families are struggling to make ends meet.”
The federal EITC, based on a household’s total earnings, gives up to $6,269 to a couple with three or more children making a maximum of $53,505 in a year. An individual without children making a maximum of $14,880 can receive up to $506 in a tax refund. The federal credit along with the state and city’s contribution combine for a significant benefit -- a maximum of $8,463 for qualifying New York City residents -- that can inject money back into the pockets of low- to moderate-income New Yorkers and spur spending.
Studies have found that the credit is highly effective at raising employment rates for single parents and that families with children typically use the credit to pay for things like home repair, maintenance on vehicles that are used to commute to work, and in some cases, to continue their education. This success has made the tax credit popular for conservatives and liberals, alike.
The comptroller first released his proposal, accompanied by a detailed report, in September last year at an Association for a Better New York breakfast event. The report projects that tripling the city’s contribution could lift 15,000 families above the poverty line. The average credit for an individual who qualifies would increase from $110 to $330, and for about 6000 New Yorkers, it would effectively nullify their city income tax burden. The proposal would cost the city between $210 to $220 million, spending which is likely to go back into the city economy. According to the comptroller’s office, roughly 950,000 New Yorkers qualified for the EITC last year, receiving about $2.8 billion in tax refunds. That translates to about 150,000 families that escaped poverty levels.
One setback with the credit is that many New Yorkers do not realize that they qualify for it. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive Democrat, the city has recognized the strength of the EITC program. In 2015, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) launched a media blitz to promote the tax credit, including ads in the subways, on bus shelters, in print, radio and online. That ad campaign has become a staple in promoting the city’s free tax preparation program. According to estimates by Civis Analytics, a data analytics firm that helped the city with its “Start By Asking” benefits awareness campaign, of the 1.1 million New York City residents that qualify for EITC, approximately 120,000 of them do not claim the credit, which is the city’s current concern. DCA spokesperson Abigail Lootens, in an email, said the agency is closely reviewing the comptroller’s EITC proposition. “We are also dedicated to reaching those who are currently eligible but not claiming this vital credit,” she said.
At the state level, Stringer has found an ally in Senator Jose Serrano, a Democrat whose district includes the South Bronx and parts of East Harlem, low- and middle-income communities for which the EITC is a boon. Serrano introduced a bill in the current legislative session based on Stringer’s proposal, to allow New York City to expand its EITC contribution. The senator stressed that expanding EITC is an “organic approach” to reducing poverty. “While it does require a financial commitment by the city, a vast majority of that money goes right back into the community,” he said in a phone interview.
Serrano’s bill is currently before the Senate’s Cities Committee, where he hopes it’ll receive the necessary support. The committee is chaired by Sen. Simcha Felder, a Democrat who caucuses with the Republican majority. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said the proposal would be reviewed.
“It is really such a timely bill,” Serrano said. “Over the last few years, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. This will help bridge that gap a little and help people get above the poverty line.”
Ron Deutsch, executive director of the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute, said both the city and state should increase their EITC contributions “to help bolster low-income family earnings and help boost them out of poverty.” Aside from Serrano’s bill, there are multiple proposals before the state Legislature that enhance the EITC in some shape or form, including a bill sponsored by Assemblymember Robin Schimminger, an upstate Democrat. Schimminger’s bill, which increases the state’s EITC from 30 to 35 percent of the federal EITC, has been introduced in three previous legislative sessions but has never made it beyond the Ways and Means committee. Schimminger’s office did not return a request for comment by publishing time.
“This is one of those bipartisan issues where there’s agreement,” Deutsch said. “In terms of why it doesn’t get done, I think it’s always a matter of political will in Albany. Given how many New Yorkers are struggling to make ends meet, this would be a logical means to address that.” He believes the state should increase its contribution to 40 percent, which he said comes with a price tag of $400 million annually. “I would suggest it’s a good investment that spurs the economy,” he said.
It’s unclear, however, whether Stringer’s or Schimminger’s proposals will find support in either the Democrat-run Assembly or the Republican-led Senate. Spokespersons for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority leader John Flanagan and for the Senate Independent Democratic Conference did not respond to requests for comment.
E.J. McMahon, research director at the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, believes the cost of expanding EITC is likely the only reason it hasn’t been achieved though it has the backing of fiscal conservatives. “It’s the most effective way to incentivize and reward work,” he said, noting that it would work better if expanded at the state level. He added, “It would win broad support if we could pay for it.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
photo: NYC Board of Elections
When City Council Member Rafael Salamanca Jr., a Bronx Democrat, was elected in a special held on February 23 last year, only 3,764 ballots were cast and he received 1,455 of them. There were five other candidates in the race.
In 2013, almost exactly four years ago, Donovan Richards was elected to represent Queens’ 31st Council District. Eight candidates ran and 9,147 people voted. Richards received 2,646 votes, closely beating out Pesach Osina who got 2,567 votes.
Special elections for City Council are fairly rare, almost always low-turnout, and much more important than people may realize. Not only do specials, like any election, change the course of the candidates lives and careers, but they determine local representation for district residents and larger policy contributions that winners may make to the city.
In just a few days -- on February 14 -- nearly a dozen candidates will be on the ballot for a special City Council election in Harlem to replace former Council Member Inez Dickens, who was elected to the state Assembly in November. But the especially large slate of candidates is unlikely to mean there will be strong voter turnout. Special elections tend to draw far fewer people to the polls than regularly-scheduled primary and general elections, which themselves typically host unimpressive turnout in New York.
“It’s twice as hard, if not more, to get people to vote in a special election,” said Steven Romalewski, director of the Center for Urban Research’s mapping service at CUNY Graduate Center. “People aren’t used to voting in February.”
“The challenge with a special election,” said Romalewski, “is that not only do candidates and supporters need to make the case for why people should vote for them, but they also have to cross the threshold of getting people to know that there is an election. During the general, you don’t have that issue.”
Special elections in New York City are nonpartisan, meaning that there are no party primaries and candidates do not run on the typical party ballot lines. Instead, they create their own party name and can appear on the ballot if they collect the requisite number of valid petition signatures from district residents.
Including those that elected Council Members Salamanca and Richards, there have been six City Council special elections between 2010 and 2016. Although each was held in different circumstances, and there’s no easy apples-to-apples comparisons to be made, some factors do hold true. For instance, specials scheduled the same day as the general election see higher turnout, in part because of increased awareness among voters and votes cast down party lines.
Voters have the “ingrained” habit of going to the polls in November during general elections, Romalewski noted, and if a special is held the same day, people may cast votes along party lines. Then even an unopposed candidate could receive a substantial number of votes that are mostly unavailable during a special election held in, say, February.
As of April 1, City Council District 9 -- the Harlem seat home to this month’s special election -- had 96,797 active registered voters, according to the New York City Board of Elections. This includes 79,482 Democrats, 3,108 Republicans and 11,241 unaffiliated voters.
In the September 2013 Democratic primary election for the seat, 18,412 votes were cast, 12,878 of which were for Inez Dickens, who was running for re-election and had only one opponent. In the general, Dickens ran unopposed, but received 23,454 out of 28,647 votes cast.
This next vote for the Council member from District 9 will not be on primary or general election day, though. It will be February 14, and turnout could be exceedingly low. With eleven candidates on the ballot, a winner may prevail with fewer than 2,000 votes, if that. The candidates are State Senator Bill Perkins; Marvin Holland; Charles Cooper; Donald Fields; Pierre Gooding; Athena Moore; Todd Stevens; Larry Blackmon; Cordell Cleare; Caprice Alves; and Dawn Simmons.
Aside from the eleven who did make it, two other candidates were kicked off the ballot by the Board of Elections on Tuesday, one for having submitted ballot petitions past the deadline and another for attempting to run on the Democratic Party line in a nonpartisan election.
Two recent “special” elections, in Staten Island’s District 51 and Queens District 23, were held on November 3, 2015, the day of the general election, to fill vacancies created from the separate resignations of two City Council members. Owing to technicalities in election law, based on the timing of the vacancies the District 51 race was considered a special election and the other was an “off-year” election, which involves different rules.
In the Staten Island race, there were 13,002 votes in total, of which 9,111 went to now-Council Member Joe Borelli, a Republican Assembly member at the time. (Borelli was on the ballot again in 2016, running in an “off-year” election for the last year of the term.) The Queens “off-year” election, on the other hand, involved a party primary in September 2015, in which Barry Grodenchik won the Democratic nomination with 1,942 votes out of the total 7,196. On November 3, he received 6,156 votes out of 11,305 cast, beating his Republican opponent by 2,000 votes.
Similarly, in 2012, Andy King was elected to the City Council from District 12 in the Bronx, in another special election held with the general election. King received 35,580 votes out of 58,505 votes cast in the nonpartisan race. He had five competitors.
Two special elections held in 2010 also bear the same pattern -- much higher turnout when held in conjunction with the general election. When Brooklyn’s David Greenfield was elected to the District 44 seat in March of that year, he received 7,242 votes of the 12,762 cast. Later in November, on general election day, when Ruben Wills ran for District 28 in Queens, he received 6,145 votes but 22,428 people voted.
By law, the mayor must call for a special election within three days of a vacancy occurring and the election must take place on the first Tuesday at least 45 days after the vacancy. This helps avoid prolonged periods without community representation, but leads to specials on seemingly random Tuesdays.
“In November, most voters know about the election.” said political consultant Jerry Skurnik, co-founder of Prime New York. In specials held during the rest of the year, he said, candidates have two necessary tasks to perform. “You’ve got to convince people to vote and then convince people to vote for you,” he said.
Skurnik did point out that the range of turnout in special elections is usually between 10 to 15 percent, trending towards the lower end, implying that there is a dedicated base of voters that will cast a ballot regardless of the timing of the election or even the weather on the particular day. The difference, though, comes down to the race and the candidates. “It’s driven largely by how competitive it is and how active candidates are,” Skurnik said.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette