Mayor de Blasio makes a budget presentation (photo via Mayor's Office)

During the annual budget process, city agencies and entities are at the mercy of the Mayor and the City Council, who ultimately set the budget. But unlike many, the several agencies and officials who regularly monitor, regulate, or litigate against the mayoral administration are put in an awkward situation, annually appealing for funding in a dynamic that can hamper their ability to carry out charter-mandated duties and, in some cases, lead

CM Van Bramer, Mayor de Blasio, & Dennis Walcott (l-r) (photo via The Mayor's Office)

Members of the New York City Council have joined together with cultural institutions and advocates to petition Mayor Bill de Blasio to increase by $40 million the funding for cultural programming and organizations in the upcoming city budget. With a budget deal due by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year, final negotiations are underway between the City Council and the de Blasio administration, and outside groups are making their last

The Mayor and Council discuss the budget (all photos: William Alatriste)

City budget season entered its home stretch last week when the City Council conducted its final hearing on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $82.2 billion executive budget for fiscal year 2017. With a deal between the Council and the mayor due by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year, the parties will largely negotiate behind closed doors, with funding levels for a number of major priorities on the table. There are also lingering questions about savings and how much

The Human Services Council and City Council Members rally at City Hall

On a hot and sunny day, dozens of nonprofit workers took to the steps of City Hall to call on Mayor Bill de Blasio to fund a 2.5 percent increase for the administrative costs of nonprofits that contract with the city. Forty-seven of 51 City Council members have signed on to a letter to de Blasio asking him to baseline the increase, an additional $25

 Adult Literacy Rally (Sofie Hecht / Gotham Gazette)

 A variety of activist groups and City Council members gathered outside City Hall on Wednesday morning to call for attention to their respective causes. New legislation was to be introduced at the City Council that afternoon and more budget money was being requested, or demanded, as the city’s new financial plan is due by the end of June and negotiations between the Mayor and the City Council

The five District Attorneys at a March hearing (photo: William Alatriste)

The district attorneys of the five boroughs reasserted their need for increased funding in the 2017 fiscal year at a City Council executive budget hearing Monday at City Hall. Council members—opting to forego heavy questioning of the necessity of this funding—framed fulfilling the district attorney requests as a crucial step towards criminal justice reform.

The public safety committee hearing was the penultimate executive budget hearing, with

Mayor de Blasio with Commissioner Sutton (in blue) (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

On Friday, the New York City Council will hold the first-ever budget hearing for the newly created Department of Veterans’ Services.

The Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs is transitioning into the Department of Veterans’ Services, a standalone department with a distinct agency budget and providing expanded services for the city’s 225,000 military veterans. The department became official in April and will now proceed to rollout over the next year, increasing staff

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday said he would take another look at funding of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) for the fiscal year 2017 budget. At its March City Council preliminary budget hearing, COIB representatives explained underfunding of the agency resulting in its inability to carry out its mandated training of city employees around conflict of interest rules and its inability to retain employees. They also said that the city’s budget office had denied repeated requests for

Council Member Eugene & advocates for youth summer camps (photo: @CAMBAInc)

When the City Council held its first hearing on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Executive Budget for fiscal year

Hank Prussing's mural, The Spirit of East Harlem (via @ManhattanCB11)

Pearl Barkley moved to East Harlem in the 1950s, when she was six years old. Her family lived in the Jefferson Houses on 115th Street, where she lives today and works as an organizer with Community Voices Heard, an economic justice advocacy non-profit.

“Many people remember the fires, the abandoned boarded up buildings, and the people who left,” Barkley said in an interview. Essential services began disappearing from the

Council Member Van Bramer leads a library funding rally (photo: William Alatriste)

Funding for New York City’s three public library systems is still $22 million short of the $65 million in city funding libraries received before the recession, despite increased demand for the services libraries provide, the presidents of the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library said at a March 23 City Council preliminary budget hearing.

Hundreds of orange-clad librarians and library advocates filled the

Council Speaker Mark-Viverito and colleagues (photo: William Alatriste)

Last week, the City Council’s finance committee voted to increase the Council’s operating budget for fiscal year 2017, which begins July 1, by $3.1 million, bringing it to a total of $64 million, a five percent increase over last year’s ...

CM Levin, left, & HRA Commissioner Banks (photo: William Alatriste)

A new report on the city's reengineered public assistance system concluded, among other findings, that it's too soon to tell whether the wide-ranging reforms put in place by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steven Banks are working. The updated analysis from the city's Independent Budget Office (IBO) not only leaves unanswered whether the Banks/de Blasio reforms are working, but how exactly to judge a system now geared towards long-term change rather than short-term

Council Member Ben Kallos (photo: William Alatriste)

When the city's new fiscal year begins in July, the Board of Elections will be readying to administer two elections before the close of the 2016 calendar year: September primaries and the November general, which will include the presidential contest. This, after running elections in April and June.

To fulfill its duties and ensure smooth electoral processes, the BOE will need to hire and train thousands of poll workers, hold state-mandated voter registration drives and, given unforeseen circumstances,

DOI Commissioner Mark Peters (photo: @DOInews)

The New York City Department of Investigation has become a more proactive body focusing on systemic problems at city agencies, said Commissioner Mark Peters at a City Council budget hearing on Monday afternoon. Peters explained his office's increased productivity and impact in attempting to justify a nearly 43 percent increase in the department's budget for fiscal year 2017, which begins July 1.

The City Council's evaluation of Mayor Bill de Blasio's $82 billion preliminary budget is now in its second week and administration

New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Budget season heats up this week: the state budget is due by the end of the month, the legislature's one-house budgets are expected this week, as are further negotiations among Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and Senate President John Flanagan, and New York City budget hearings continue. After holding its ...

photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York

Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday March 4, 2016

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Mayor de Blasio and City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr. visit Bed-Stuy businesses, via William Alatriste;

...

CM Ferreras-Copeland & Dean Fuleihan of OMB (photo via Ferreras-Copeland's office) 

Proposed cuts in state funding to New York City loomed large over the first of many City Council budget hearings on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $82 billion preliminary budget. At Tuesday’s hearing, the Council’s Committee on Finance heard testimony from several de Blasio administration officials, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and independent budget watchdogs.

Throughout

Mayor de Blasio briefs Council members on his FY17 budget (William Alatriste)

On Tuesday, the City Council will hold the first of many preliminary budget hearings on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s initial fiscal year 2017 spending plan, part of a months-long negotiation process that will end in June when the City Council and the Mayor must agree upon a budget for fiscal year 2017.

First in general terms, then agency by agency, the Council will ask de Blasio

photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York

Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday February 12

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK: Mayor de Blasio participates in the HOPE Count of homeless people living on the street, via Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office; Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito delivers her State of the City speech, via William

Comptroller Scott Stringer (photo via Stringer's office)

In an analysis of Mayor Bill de Blasio's preliminary fiscal year 2017 budget unveiled on Wednesday, Comptroller Scott Stringer pointed to several areas of concern amid a still-positive overall financial picture for New York City.

Speaking to members of the media assembled in a conference room at his Manhattan offices, Stringer said that the "budget cushion," or savings, that de Blasio has allocated is insufficient to properly prepare for an economic downturn and

Mayor de Blasio in Albany Tuesday (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio surely wasn't expecting a warm reception in Albany Tuesday, but he walked into an ambush. In front of a bipartisan group of state legislators, de Blasio sat for a grueling, nearly five-hour budget testimony. Senate Republicans peppered the mayor with questions about instituting a property tax cap in the city, taking away from any focus on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ...

photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York

Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday January 22

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: City Council Members and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, via @ydanis; City Council Member Donovan Richards, Gov. Cuomo, Bronx BP Diaz Jr., via ...

De Blasio presents his budget (Demetrius Freeman/Mayoral Photography Office) 

New York City's fiscal year begins July 1. As the city moves toward a fiscal year 2017 budget agreement between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council by June 30, the mayor began the process on Thursday when he unveiled his preliminary budget, which comes in at $82.1 billion.

De Blasio didn't outline any major new initiatives, instead focusing on fiscal discipline, building reserves, and making "targeted investments," including in

The Mayor delivers a budget presentation (photo: Rob Bennett for the Office of the Mayor)

For the next several months, New York City elected officials will be consumed with numbers. They’ll throw around terms like efficiencies, gaps, capital, expenses, revenues, and deficits as they go back and forth over how, where, and when the city should spend its money.

Mayor Bill de Blasio will release his preliminary budget for fiscal year 2017 on Thursday, Jan. 21, setting off