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De Blasio Delay Plus Pandemic Means Property Tax Reform Appears Off the Table This Year


Mayor de Blasio property tax reform dead

Mayor de Blasio's slow-play on property tax reform has now been compounded (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Offie)


The start of the year 2020 offered what many believed to be the most promising steps in decades to revamping New York's confusing and unfair property tax system. In January, an advisory commission established by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council, which was tasked with comprehensively assessing and reevaluating the property tax system, released a set of recommendations. While coming much later than many had hoped, the recommendations were supposed to lead to community conversations around the city and a set of legislative proposals to be acted on at both the city and state levels to make a more rational and equitable system.

But less than four months after the commission released its initial report, the coronavirus pandemic has effectively closed the door on property tax reform this year at the same time the contracting economy re-centers property taxes as the city's most reliable revenue stream.

New York City fiscal watchdog and reform groups say addressing inequities in the property tax is more important than ever, but with the advisory commission's next phase on hold and the State Legislature scaling back its work amid the coronavirus crisis, hope for meaningful changes any time soon has vanished.

“We are seeing first-hand the economic impact COVID-19 is having in New Yorkers who are struggling to get by. At the same time, we must balance the very real needs of the City, which relies on property taxes to fund the essential city services like hospitals and our first responders," wrote Laura Feyer, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio, in response to an inquiry about what changes the city was making. She said the city had taken some steps toward relief for property owners facing hardship due to the pandemic but did not say whether there were plans to resume the timeline for the advisory commission's public forums or broader reform.

But property tax reform remains essential, argues Martha Stark, former finance commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloombergn, now serving as policy director of the advocacy group Tax Equity Now, which sued the city and state over inequities in its property tax system. "Given that the city's only mechanism for raising revenue is going to be through the property tax, I don't know how much more urgent it could be to ensure the taxes are done in a way that is fair and that is really reflective of people's values," Stark said in an interview.

De Blasio has been seeking federal relief aid and has implored state lawmakers to authorize $7 billion in emergency borrowing to fill what has become a $9 billion budget gap due to lost revenue from tourism, sales and real estate transaction taxes, and more. In the city's latest projections, property taxes now account for 35 percent of the city's total revenue in the current fiscal year, according to officials in the mayor's office and City Council, compared with 30 percent last fiscal year.

"Especially since we don't know what's going to happen in Washington, we right now are absolutely dependent on whatever resources we can get and property tax is a part of it for sure," the mayor told reporters on May 10, as part of a response to a question about property tax relief for struggling homeowners and landlords.

New York City's property taxes have long been criticized for having an irrational assessment and levy structure that places an uneven burden on low-income communities and communities of color. Homeowners in some of the city’s most booming neighborhoods have among the lowest effective property tax rates, as do some of the most expensive coops and condos, while homeowners in places like the Bronx and Staten Island, which have not seen rapid gentrification, pay a much higher percent of their property's value in real estate taxes. Tenants often serve as a release valve for the high taxes on large rental buildings. With property taxes now making up a larger portion of the city's total revenue, the unequal tax burdens represent yet another example of the pandemic crisis being borne largely on the backs of poor black and Latino New Yorkers.

In 2002, newly-inaugurated Mayor Michael Bloomberg, facing a gap of $7.4 billion over two years due to fallout from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, raised property tax rates. Stark says if the city were to increase taxes, "they are going to actually exacerbate the real estate tax differential for those homeowners," increasing the urgency for reform. De Blasio has given no indication he is looking at property tax rate increases.

Changing New York City's property tax scheme requires action at both the city and state levels, and while ad hoc changes have been made over the past 40 years, the conflicting interests involved in overhauling a system that touches every resident of the state have been a death sentence to prior reform efforts.

The recent momentum came after the Tax Equity Now lawsuit and the Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform, empanelled by de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson in 2018, which released its preliminary report in January, giving city and state lawmakers the beginnings of a roadmap to approach wholesale reform. The commission was slated to hold another round of public hearings and produce a final set of recommendations, many of which will require action in Albany.

But the first hearing, scheduled for March 12 on Staten Island, was postponed and it is unclear if any make-up for it or subsequent hearings is in the works.

"Virtual hearings would be an independent commission decision, and have not been planned as of now," said Feyer, the spokesperson for the mayor.

A spokesperson for Johnson said his office was in conversations with the administration about the next steps for public hearings.

Parallel reform efforts in the State Legislature have also stalled.

"Property tax reform is not the issue we are dealing with this year," said State Senator Brian Benjamin, a Manhattan Democrat and chair of the Committee on Revenue and Budget, on the Max & Murphy Podcast Wednesday.

"At this point we are really dealing with the COVID crisis. I would imagine that we will fervently look at property taxes next year. I would have liked to look at it more closely this year and that was the energy we were on and then COVID hit and it's really been hard to focus on that," said the senator, who organized a number of public forums and an expert roundtable on property tax reform last fall in anticipation of the 2020 legislative session and the commission's initial report. Benjamin is also a candidate for New York City Comptroller in the 2021 election.

"The time should not be wasted," wrote Andrew Rein, executive director of Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit watchdog, in an email to Gotham Gazette. "The Commission's report was a solid start to comprehensive reform."

The commission's initial recommendations took aim largely at inequities in the assessment of 1-3 family homes, small rental buildings, and cooperatives and condominiums. It did little to address commercial and large rental buildings, where the tax burden is often passed on to tenants.

"While there may be general consensus on many of the recommendations, detailed proposals and legislative language are needed to fully evaluate the impact," Rein wrote.

Rein fears the lost momentum might lead to piecemeal changes without a comprehensive approach, which he says could further complicate the opaque and often irrational system. But Stark says there are some steps the mayor can and should take now, amid a crisis known for exacerbating inequities across lines of race and class.

"One-, two-, three-family home owners, owners of rental properties where tenants are struggling to pay rent...are going to be struggling to pay their real estate taxes," Stark said. "This could not be a more appropriate moment for the city to really be addressing especially the many inequities that are within their control."

One thing the city could do is lower the assessment ratio on certain properties to correct the imbalance in tax burden, Stark said. Another is to undertake extensive quality control to ensure that its assessment models are determining property value based on the value of truly comparable properties, which experts point out is often not the case.

A growing chorus of landlords, tenants, and business owners are calling for property tax relief. On May 13, the mayor and the New York City Banking Commission called on the City Council to create a hardship exemption for property owners facing financial challenges due to the pandemic that would eliminate interest on late payments for property taxes due in July on property assessed below $250,000. The measure would require the city to pass a local law, according to a press release from the mayor's office.

"The Council is glad the administration acted on our budget response request and looked at ways to work with struggling property owners. The Council is reviewing these recommendations amid ongoing negotiations with the administration," wrote a Council spokesperson in an email.

In May, a group of industry and civic groups, including the Real Estate Board of New York and the NAACP, called on the city to freeze property tax rates and assessments, reduce interest penalties, and allow owners to pay taxes on a monthly basis.

The lawsuit by Stark's group, Tax Equity Now (which is not a part of the coalition), is an attempt to force property tax reform through the courts. The effort saw a serious setback when it was dismissed in the appellate division earlier this year, but the group is filing an appeal in the state's highest court.

"Part of the reason why we brought our lawsuit is that we didn't think that the political side was going to be able to handle property tax reform,” Stark said. “This has been an issue for 40-plus years and the political side hasn't been able to do anything.”

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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The Deadline to Register to Vote in June is Friday - and Other Key 2020 Primary Election Info


early voting rally

Register to vote by Friday May 29 (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


New York’s primary election is less than a month away on, June 23, preceded by early voting June 13-21, and with all eligible voters allowed to vote absentee due to the coronavirus pandemic. The deadline for new voters to register is this Friday, May 29 [Find more info here].

There are state legislative, congressional, and presidential contests on the ballot along with a few local seats like Queens Borough President and a Brooklyn City Council race. Only party-affiliated voters can vote in the primaries, and almost all of the races in New York City are Democratic primaries. All Democrats across the state can vote in the party’s presidential primary, and there are many primaries for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, State Senate, and State Assembly. All Queens Democrats can vote in the borough president primary.

Check your voter registration online here. Enter your address and party affiliation here to see your sample ballot. You can read the full list of all primaries on the June ballot in New York City here.

The coronavirus pandemic caused significant upheaval for the state’s political calendar this year and several elections that were meant to take place in the preceding months have been delayed till the June party primary. (Some special elections – for state Assembly, Senate and Queens Borough President – were even cancelled through executive order by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and primaries are being held to fill those seats, to be followed by the fall general election, in more typical fashion.)

As many Democratic presidential candidates were dropping from the race and the coronavirus outbreak was taking hold of New York, state leaders inserted language in the April budget to allow the state Board of Elections to cancel the presidential primary if all candidates other than one had conceded. When that happened and Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee, the BOE voted to cancel the primary, but the decision was overturned by a federal judge after a suit by former candidate Andrew Yang, among others, and much protest from former candidate Bernie Sanders and his supporters. The Republican presidential primary was cancelled months ago since President Donald Trump is the party’s only candidate.

Though in-person voting will still take place, with strict social distancing guidelines for polling sites, voters are being urged to instead vote through absentee ballots. (Short of that, taking advantage of early voting hours is encouraged. Find the list of New York City’s early voting sites here.)

In April, the governor allowed all voters to apply for an absentee ballot, using the pandemic as a valid excuse for one; he later mandated that the Board of Elections send all eligible voters an absentee ballot application with paid postage. Votes must then request the ballot, receive that in the mail, fill it out, and send it back.

The State BOE has applications available in English and Spanish. The New York City Board of Elections provides forms in Chinese, Korean, and Bengali as well.

The New York City BOE, along with a few other counties, has an online portal where voters can apply for an absentee ballot (this may be advisable for anyone concerned the BOE may not mail them the application as mandated by the governor). Applications are also being accepted by email, fax and by phone by calling 1-866-VOTE-NYC (1-866-868-3692).

Boards of Elections began accepting requests for absentee ballots on May 24. A request for an absentee ballot must be postmarked by June 16. Though, again, Boards are supposed to be mailing every eligible voter an application without them having to request one.

Governor Cuomo signed legislation on June 7 to extend the deadline for filing an absentee ballot application in person or postmarking an absentee ballot by mail to June 23, election day. Voters can also designate another individual to file their absentee ballot. The deadline for choosing that individual is June 23. If a ballot is mailed, it must be received by June 30 for it to be counted. These deadlines and the unusually high volume of absentee voting expected could mean some races are not called for days or weeks after June 23.

Friday, May 29 is the deadline for anyone not already registered to vote who wishes to participate in the June primaries to register, either in person or via mailed form, with postmark no later than that day and received by the BOE by June 3. The BOE will also process changes of address if they are received by June 3.

The deadline for changing party affiliation, however, passed February 14.

The fall elections, including the general election for president, are set for November 3, with an early voting period beginning toward the end of October.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note - this article has been updated.

Adams, Kallos Introduce Bill to Mandate Nutrition Standards for Food Provided by the City


pantry si project

Food being prepared during the coronavirus crisis (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and New York City Council Member Ben Kallos of Manhattan, both Democrats, announced new legislation last week that would mandate nutrition standards for the “grab & go” and home delivered meals provided by the city, which have become essential sources of food for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers during the coronavirus crisis.

As unemployment in the city has skyrocketed from 4% to past 14%, children are not attending schools where they often get free meals, and older New Yorkers are not going to senior centers where they get fed, the city has provided tens of millions of free meals over the course of the more than two-month near-shutdown of the city. But as the city has ramped up its food operation, there have been some issues and questions, including over the healthfulness of the meals.

The announcement by Adams and Kallos, who have both taken an interest in food and wellness since well before the pandemic, comes “as several New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs have expressed concern about the quality and nutritional standards of the food distributed through the GetFoodNYC initiative, launched in response to the growing number of New Yorkers who have lost jobs or income due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” their announcement of the bill said.

The bill would set nutritional standards for snacks and meals funded directly or indirectly by city government, as assigned by the city’s health department or another agency chosen by the mayor. Some exceptions would apply, such as when the meals are regulated by federal or state entities. The legislation would require the city to review menus and food distribution on occasion for compliance and to provide support so that regulated providers meet the nutritional standards, and the agency in charge would have to garner feedback at least once a year from food recipients.

As the crisis took hold of the city, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio established the GetFoodNYC hub, where New Yorkers can access various resources and information, including access to SNAP (food stamps) benefits from the Human Resources Association (HRA), a map of hundreds of food pantries and meal pick-up sites in the city, and food delivery assistance. The “grab & go” meal system now provides 500,000 meals per day to anyone who needs food, no questions asked, between 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, at 435 sites across the five boroughs.

Halal meals are available at all sites, and Kosher meals are available at 18 sites. Food delivery is ramping up to reach 1 million meals per day by this week, de Blasio recently announced.

“We have sick care in our city, our state and our country,” Adams said at a press conference, explaining the rationale behind the bill. “Wait until people get sick and we treat them instead of the underlying cause. The real irony is that our city, literally and figuratively, feeds the health-care crisis through the non-nutritional, sometimes unhealthy food programs. Our tax dollars are being used to make us sick, and that needs to be emphasized. Our tax dollars are used to make us sick.”

During the press conference, doctors spoke about the value of nutrition and how it can be preventative and help New Yorkers have better health outcomes, which is increasingly important during a pandemic. Yami Cazola-Lancaster, a health-care professional who spoke during the press conference, suggested that certain plant-based foods, such as lentils or canned beans, are nutritious, would not be more expensive for the city to provide, and would help produce better health outcomes.

“I think that the most important thing that government can do is to lead and protect its people,” said Cazola-Lancaster. “Now, it's a sensitive issue because right now we want to address hunger, we want to address true scarcity. However, we have evidence based information about the power of food, the power that food has to both prevent and potentially reverse disease. So this is really important all the time for our citizens, but it's especially important right now because we're dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and New York has been hit so hard. So right now as the government provides food to people who need food, it's in the best interest of everybody to provide more whole plant foods and it doesn't have to be more expensive than what we're already able to do.”

On May 21 de Blasio was asked specifically about seniors, many of whom are getting home-delivered meals during the pandemic, and issues with the food that some have reported. The mayor said the food seniors are getting is held to a “high standard.”

“While this is emergency food to ensure no New Yorker goes hungry, the city also ensures meals meet nutrition requirements. For the senior meals program, for example, meals have sodium limits and required servings of protein, fruits and vegetables, and whole grains,” de Blasio said. “Due to scale, some vendors are providing shelf-stable boxes, while others are providing fresh food or frozen food as well. If food quality does not meet the program’s standards, the city addresses it directly with the food providers, and has ended contracts with providers who were not living up to their commitment.”

“It is important that we utilize everything in our power to ensure we do not feed the health-care crisis,” Adams said. “The legislation that Councilman Kallos is introducing today, would use smart, innovative ways of looking at the foods that we eat everyday. New York is on our dime to make sure that food is healthy and nutritious, to not to react to chronic disease but to start the process of giving people a healthy diet so that they can live a healthy lifestyle.”

“But what happens for those who don't have a choice, those relying on our ‘grab & go’ meals or home delivered meals from our city and when they don't even have a choice,” Kallos said. “Candy and potato chips and Bugles and things like that. That is a sometimes treat. That is not something that is part of a core diet and we need to make sure that for those who don't have a choice in the matter or literally relying on the city for their food, that we are providing them with healthy options so that if they eat that diet, they will not only be healthy but lose weight.”

Even before the pandemic and its fallout, the city was home to more than 1 million food insecure individuals, while hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have lost their jobs since mid-March, drastically increasing the need for emergency food. New York City is home to over 1.1 million seniors, according to a 2017 report by the City Comptroller, many more of whom are homebound due to social distancing restrictions and senior center closures, increasing the need for meal delivery and other food programs. As more New Yorkers rely on meals provided by the city, nutrition becomes more important.

“We are dealing with low-income communities that are already facing this epidemic where we are seeing higher numbers,” Kallos said. “We're seeing an increase of diabetes amongst our black and brown population, particularly New Yorkers who are black are seeing more diabetes than most other populations. And when we're literally handing them candy, that's not something that's going to help. Additionally, I'm a person of the Jewish faith and we're seeing seniors, Holocaust survivors, who are trying to get access to healthy food and they're being provided non-Kosher meals that they literally have to choose between their religion, where they were able to keep Kosher during World War II and the Holocaust, and trying to survive this pandemic. And that's just not a choice anyone should have to make.”

Adams said he was set to meet with de Blasio’s emergency food team on Friday to discuss nutrition, which is largely absent from the Feeding New York plan that the city released. There are no specifics about nutrition in the plan beyond saying the city will “provid[e] meals that not only are nutritious, but are also culturally and ethnically appropriate.” Kallos said that nutrition is on the radar of de Blasio’s “food czar,” Kathryn Garcia, but said he and Adams are pushing the new legislation because no action has been taken so far to remedy the problem.

***
by Katie Kirker, Gotham Gazette

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