Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Citizens Budget Commission

Citizens Budget Commission

  • City Awaits State Permission to Open ‘Overdose Prevention Centers’

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


    More than 1,400 New Yorkers died of drug overdoses in 2017, most of them the result of opioid abuse, and one of the next steps the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to take in fighting rampant opioid addiction is to open safe injection sites, which the administration is calling “overdose prevention centers.” There is currently no timeline for the four planned pilot sites to open, the city’s health commissioner said ...

  • What's The [Data] Point? $31.8 billion in NYCHA need, with Sean Campion

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 47 -- $31.8 billion, with Sean Campion [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    NYCHA needs

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

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    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

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 75%, with Marisa Lago, Director of the Department of City Planning

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 45 -- 75%, with Marisa Lago, Director of the Department of City Planning [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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

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

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    City

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  • City Council Push for Budget Transparency Falls Far Short

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


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

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  • City Planning Director Previews ‘Geography of Jobs’ Report

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    Marisa Lago (photo: Citizens Budget Commission)


    Urban planning wonks and other interested parties gathered Tuesday morning for a Citizens Budget Commission trustee breakfast featuring Marisa Lago, the director of the city’s Department of City Planning (DCP) and the chair of the City Planning Commission.

    At the event, Lago granted attendees a preview of DCP’s forthcoming “Geography of Jobs” report, due for release later this summer.

    “Geography of Jobs” is a product of the Department of City Planning’s first foray into regionalism, led by DCP’s relatively ...

  • New Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson Outlines His Portfolio, Which Includes Everything

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    Thompson, with the Mayor and First Lady (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Bill de Blasio and Phil Thompson go back decades, working together in the administration of Mayor David Dinkins, but they spent many years apart before rejoining the same team earlier this year, when de Blasio announced the appointment of Thompson as the new Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives.

    Replacing Richard Buery in the role, Thompson begins his tenure in the de Blasio administration for the start of the Democratic mayor’s second and

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  • Council Sanitation Chair Says Mayor Must Get ‘Bold’ on Waste Management

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    Council Member Reynoso, middle (photo: @JoeEspoNYC)


    “Trash — it’s not sexy,” said City Council Member Antonio Reynoso. “It’s the hardest thing to get people to care about and it’s also something that’s out of sight and out of mind because it gets picked up -- for the most part, the Department of Sanitation does a great job.”

    But there’s a lot about trash -- waste management, really -- to discuss, and Reynoso is at the forefront of the conversations as chair of the City Council’s sanitation committee, a position he has held for more than four years,

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  • Investigation Commissioner on Examining NYPD, NYCHA and Correction

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    Commissioner Peters at a press conference (photo: @NYC_DOI)


    It took Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Police Department two years to accept what the city’s Department of Investigation had uncovered in 2015, DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said recently: that quality-of-life crime enforcement, like marijuana arrests, does little to reduce violent crime and that these arrests disproportionately affect people of color.

    When the DOI came out with the report detailing these findings, it experienced pushback from the mayor, who publicly questioned the

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 176,000, with Patrick Orecki

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 40 -- 176,000, with Patrick Orecki [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    176,000

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 4, with Sally Goldenberg

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 39 -- 4, with Sally Goldenberg [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • City Council Takes Harder Line on Mid-Year Budget Modifications

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    Speaker Johnson, center, CM Dromm, and Finance Director McKinney, background (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    Last month, before the New York City Council issued its budget demands for next fiscal year to Mayor Bill de Blasio and before the mayor eventually ignored nearly all of them in his Executive Budget plan, the Council called in administration budget officials to testify on a modification to the current year’s budget.

    In past years, budget modifications have been subject to the same perfunctory hearing.

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 5.8%

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 38 -- 5.8%, with Ana Champeny of CBC [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • De Blasio Presents $89 Billion Executive Budget Plan

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


    Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled an $89.06 billion executive budget proposal for the 2019 fiscal year on Thursday, decrying new spending that the city must undertake to meet shortfalls and unfunded mandates imposed by the new state budget approved last month, and cautioning of federal actions that could affect the city’s fiscal future.

    The latest budget proposal reflects a net spending increase of about $390 million from the mayor’s preliminary budget released in

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $168.3 Billion, with Dave Friedfel

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 36 -- $168.3 billion, with Dave Friedfel [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 17%, with Comptroller Tom DiNapoli

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 35 -- 17%, with Tom DiNapoli [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • Fulfilling Johnson Promise, City Council Significantly Increases Its Operating Budget

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    Council Members Cumbo, Johnson & Dromm (l-r) (photo: John McCarten)


    The City Council’s Committee on Finance voted on Thursday to increase the Council’s operating budget to $81.3 million, an increase of nearly 27 percent from the current fiscal year’s budget of $64 million, following through on Speaker Corey Johnson’s promise to increase internal resources and produce a stronger role for the legislative body in areas such as land use and oversight.

    The City Charter allows the Council to decide its own budget, with no required oversight and

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $9.5 Billion, with Andrew Rein

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 34 -- $9.5 billion with Andrew Rein [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    $9.5 billion is the new Citizens

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $32.2 Billion, with Rick Cotton and Jamison Dague

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 33 -- $32.2 billion, with Rick Cotton of the Port Authority and Jamison Dague of CBC [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 86, with Stanley Fischer

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 32 -- 86, with Stanley Fischer [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Former Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Stanley Fischer accepted the Felix G. Rohatyn Award, which recognizes legendary champions of New York and sound fiscal management, at the

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $72.4 Billion, with Charles Brecher

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 30 -- $72.4 Billion, with Charles Brecher [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Health care

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  • What's The [Data] Point? $88.7 billion, with Mara Gay

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 29 -- $88.7 billion, with Mara Gay [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    On Thursday, Feburary 1, Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his preliminary budget proposal for city fiscal year 2019, which begins July 1. On Friday, February 2, Mara Gay of the Wall Street

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  • What’s The [Data] Point? $14.3 Billion, with Robert Mujica and Dean Fuleihan

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    What's The Data Point? Episode 28 -- $14.3 Billion, with Robert Mujica and Dean Fuleihan [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    State Budget Director Robert Mujica and New York City First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan spoke at a CBC event on Wednesday, January 24 to discuss the

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  • 10 Burning Questions After Cuomo’s State of the State and Budget

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    Gov. Cuomo during his budget presentation (photo: The Governor's Office)


    Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled his executive budget for the next fiscal year on Tuesday, centering his presentation around the threat to New York posed by the new federal tax code and possibilities for combatting it and other policies from Washington, D.C. The budget address came almost two weeks after Cuomo’s State of the State speech, at which he presented his 2018 policy agenda.

    In both cases, Cuomo left unsaid key aspects of major proposals -- most notably

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