Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

Now that New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ long-shot campaign for New York Governor is over, he presumably has more time to focus on performing the functions that the New York City Charter assigns to his elected office.

One function he has yet to perform, but something all previous Public Advocates have done, is to convene a meeting of the Commission on Public Information and Communication (COPIC). There’s never been a better time for him to do that than now.

COPIC was established in the charter revision of 1990 to “make city government more transparent to the citizens it serves and to encourage the public to become more actively involved in government.” Its purpose is, in the words of the New York Times, “to monitor policies on access to information produced or maintained by the city, including computerized information.”

While this might not sound sexy today, it was a remarkably innovative idea when it was first conceived in 1990. That was the year that the world wide web (aka Internet) was invented, and the public was awakening to the possibility that computer networks could make government significantly more efficient and transparent. In fact, the Charter Revision Commission, which was tasked by the U.S. Supreme Court to fix New York’s unconstitutional government structure, used transparency as the centerpiece of its campaign to get the charter ratified by voters. 

During the campaign to ratify the new city charter in 1989, the main theme used in marketing campaigns and repeated regularly by the commission’s chair was “a Government People Can Understand.”

33 years later and New York City has elected a self described “tech guy,” Eric Adams, as mayor. Adams promised voters an upgrade to New York City's information systems that would improve city operations, eliminate waste, improve transparently and enable agencies to more effectively and efficiently deliver services to city residents. Much of his campaign rhetoric relied on the premise he could use his approach to technology to get things done.

His plans were widely discussed in local media. New York magazine proclaimed “Eric Adams wants to CompStat everything”. Gotham Gazette offered a more sober assessment: “Though it is vaguely defined and missing an estimated price tag, among other details, Adams’ plan involves revamping and redesigning how city agencies coordinate and use data and technology.”

After six months in office, the press is beginning to wonder: “Is Eric Adams All Talk?” Does he have a plan to upgrade New York City’s government bureaucracy? If so, what is it? Is his administration making progress? The public deserves to know and it’s the Public Advocate’s job to find out. COPIC offers him a powerful tool to do just that. And there is clearly interest from the media and the public about progress. Gotham Gazette’s recent report on Adams’ plan to launch a first version of  “MyCity” contains some good background but very few specifics from the administration about its efforts. 

The city can’t adopt the open source digital transformation approach many experts have recommended if the city doesn't work in the open. At the very least the mayor’s new Office of Technology and Innovation, under which the new administration is reorganizing various technology departments, should have a Github account, or at least put something – anything – on the Department of Information Technology and Telecom (DOITT)’s account. This is an obvious first step that COPIC could and should be pushing the administration to take.

Unlike many other city commissions composed of members appointed by the mayor, COPIC’s membership is defined in the charter and designed to bring together politicians, experts, and city officials who sit at the nexus of critical decision-making and operations of city information systems: the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations; the Commissioner of the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS); the Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT); the president of WNYC public radio; and additional representatives appointed by the Mayor, Public Advocate, Borough Presidents, and City Council. Its chair is the Public Advocate. 

If our current Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, put all these people in a room together, turned on the livestream cameras and had an open meeting, we’d be able to find out a lot more about the mayor’s technology strategy and progress than we know now.

Every Public Advocate has convened COPIC at least once, except for Jumaane Williams. The few times Williams has addressed the topic of COPIC has been when other people, including me, have asked if he ever plans to convene it.

In our MNN debate in last year’s Public Advocate race he was elusive, claiming at one point he can’t convene COPIC without additional funding and, at another, that he can’t because of COVID-19 but maybe he would in the future. At the NY1 Public Advocate debate in October of last year, he was repeatedly attacked by his opponent, Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, for failing to convene COPIC. 

Two days later, the COPIC website was taken down and, as of this writing, it remains down.

Fortunately, Google’s caching service had archive images of the COPIC website as of October 19, 2021. I’ve taken the liberty of republishing those images at copic.nyc with the hope that people won’t forget about a charter-mandated commission uniquely capable of making the mayor’s actions related to information technology more transparent, and holding his administration accountable for delivering genuine technology solutions that improve government operation and New Yorker’s lives. It’s also worth noting that when Williams was first running for Public Advocate in 2019, he said one reason was to more assertively hold up the city charter.

It’s Williams’ job to convene COPIC and use it as a venue to get more information from city officials about their work, including in implementing Mayor Adams’ ambitious and widely promoted plans. 

Here are a few ideas for questions Williams can ask of the city administration at his first COPIC convening:

• What work exactly is underway on MyCity, the single city portal Adams promised where residents can access all city services? What services will be available through it and when?
  

• Is work underway on his “CompStat for all city agencies” project? What will this look like? How will he phase it in? Will the data he uses for this be available on the city’s open data portal? When? How is the city tackling software procurement reform? Is it utilizing any federal resources like 18F to improve how it buys and builds software?
  
  
• What’s the status of the Digital Service Organization launched in the final days of the De Blasio administration? What is its scope of work?
  
  
• Is there a comprehensive and prioritized plan for modernizing agency software systems? Where does DOBNow sit on that list? Can you move it up?
  
  
• If another pandemic hit, how would city agencies use technology differently than they did during covid? Who, for example, would be responsible for making the type of critical information websites that the city failed to make during the first months of the covid pandemic?

New York City government relies on technology to effectively, efficiently, and equitably serve New Yorkers, and often (and famously) falls short in doing so again and again.

Our city’s people should be able to rely on COPIC to keep us informed about how our government uses that technology.

To do that, we need to be able to rely on our Public Advocate to perform all roles assigned to their office by the city’s charter.

Public Advocate Williams: it’s time to convene COPIC. Better late than never.

***
Devin Balkind is a nonprofit executive, civic technologist, and startup advisor who ran for Public Advocate as the Libertarian Party nominee. On Twitter @DevinBalkind.

Students doing STEM

As we close the books on another challenging school year, it’s worth recognizing a little-known state program that’s reaping big benefits for our school children.

This year, New York funded $30 million to reimburse non-public schools for the salaries of qualified science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers for grades 3–12 as part of an innovative, first-of-its kind program first approved by the State Legislature in 2017.

Although you might not have heard of it, the program is certainly needed. According to a 2021 study conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers and Deloitte, there will be 2.1 million unfilled STEM jobs nationwide by 2030.

To address this looming crisis, the program works to increase both the quality and the quantity of STEM education in our schools. Only “highly qualified teachers” are eligible for reimbursement under the state’s rules, which incentivizes schools to hire someone with advanced degrees to teach their STEM classes. This helps make sure we are only hiring the best. And the more STEM classes that a school offers, the more reimbursement it is eligible for.    

Many schools have gotten creative with the extra state funds. For example, one all-girls school on Long Island created its own version of the popular TV show “Shark Tank,” starring their student body of budding engineers and entrepreneurs. They call it “Fish Tank,” and some of the projects include a remote-controlled pool flotation device and a UV LED light toothbrush cleaner.

In New York City, one in four of the schools that participate take part in the federal school lunch program, an indicator of a high poverty rate for the student body. And 40% of the students educated through this funding receive some type of financial assistance from their school.

One of us is the Head of School at one of those high-poverty schools, and has seen the program’s impact up-close. Since the program started last year, not only have we hired teachers we otherwise couldn’t have – many of whom are women and teachers of color – but we’re also seeing the students engage like never before. We’re hearing more and more girls say they want to major in science or math in college, and one 7th grade student recently told us she even likes multiplying negative integers. Now that’s something we never heard before!

With results like these, now is this time for the state to double down on this amazing program. For starters, cut the red tape and the lengthy delays in reimbursement payouts, which can take years to reach schools. That $30 million our schools received this year? It was approved by the Legislature over three years ago in 2019, and all applications were received by the state before September 2020. It shouldn’t take two years to process applications.

And let’s increase the amount we are reimbursing up to $100 million. That would be enough to fund all the eligible STEM teachers in New York private schools, a huge win for our students and for our state.

At first glance, that might seem like a lot of taxpayer money for non-public schools. But think about all the other things the state funds – like $409 million in tax credits for film production companies, $532 million in tax exemptions for cable television sales, and $115 million in sales tax breaks for jet fuel purchases.  

In addition, states like Florida and New Jersey – two places that many New Yorkers consider relocating to – have started or are looking to start similar programs of their own. New York has to stay competitive.

Let’s fully embrace this program and make it as strong as it can be. It’s a down payment on the future of all of our children – and all New Yorkers.

***
Maury Litwack is Managing Director for the Orthodox Union and founded its Teach Coalition division, which advocates for greater investments in nonpublic schools. Shalonda Gutierrez is the Head of School at Cornelia Connelly Center in Manhattan.

Gov. Hochul discusses the budget (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

California concluded its state budget with Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature on June 30, choosing a different path than New York to provide its residents a break from inflation.

California chose to provide modest relief to nearly all its residents through an income tax rebate this October. The Governor’s press release described the state’s action by saying, “Global inflation. Rising Costs. It’s hard out there and we know it. So, we’re giving you $9.5 billion back.”

New York State adopted its budget April 9. While there were many similarities in the two states’ budgets — from large school aid, college aid, and health care increases, bonuses for health care workers, and even large set-asides of cash reserves for the future — New York chose to funnel its main upfront benefit overwhelmingly to homeowners, followed by a benefit for car-owners.

The Hochul administration already completed the former in June, despite originally scheduling the benefit for October. The New York homeowner tax rebate, while certainly worthy in and of itself, falls far short as a broad equitable distribution of the state’s resources of the kind that California is undertaking to provide some relief amid rising costs.

Over the course of weeks, about 2.5 million New York State homeowners and cooperators began receiving tax rebate checks worth about $2.2 billion in sum from the state government. A note accompanying every check announces Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature are providing the money to “help pay your property taxes.” The rebate was authorized in the state budget adopted in April but envisioned distribution in October. Despite the initial billing as help with property taxes, the governor’s office had rising inflation on its mind in this statement about speeding up the rebate.

"Given rising costs and national inflation, the Department of Taxation and Finance has been working to deliver these benefits to eligible homeowners as quickly as practicable and not delay relief,” the state said. Accelerating the rebate also gave Governor Hochul an easy political benefit in her June Democratic primary, which she won handily.

New York’s property tax rebate ranges from a hundred dollars to more than $2,000, depending on a homeowner’s income and their local property tax burden, and the program includes about 480,000 New York City homeowners and cooperators.

The relief is linked to a longstanding New York property tax relief program, called STAR. New York actually has 4 million owner-occupied households, according to recent Census data, but homeowners and cooperators with incomes above $250,000 a year, who I estimate might comprise as much as 15% of those 4 million, are not eligible for the rebate.  Almost 1 million owner-occupied households are not eligible for other reasons, because they never applied for the STAR program in the first place, or the formula in the rebate program excludes homeowners eligible for less than $100.

Still, 46% of New York’s population is tenants and they were not eligible for the rebate. There is a relatively small percentage of tenant households with incomes above $250,000, but not many (Census figures show about 10% of New York tenants have incomes above $150,000). New York’s budget did include other kinds of tax relief, from additional credits under the Earned Income Tax Credit program to the temporary elimination of 16 cents on the gasoline tax (barely noticeable as gas prices have reached $5 a gallon), and an already-planned income tax cut that will mostly phase in next year.

Between the exclusion of renters (almost half the population), and the administrative issues with the STAR program, as much as 60% of the state’s households won’t get the special direct check from the state meant to help people amid rising costs. This does not mean that low- and middle-income homeowners across the state in areas with high property taxes aren’t getting some meaningful relief.

But California’s plan covers homeowners and tenants. And while it is titled the middle-class tax rebate, the benefit is structured around residents who file income taxes, creating a more equitable, broadly-beneficial program amid record inflation.

A married couple filing a joint tax return in California with an income of $150,000 or below with one dependent would qualify for the maximum benefit of $1,050. A resident filing a single return with an income below $75,000 would qualify for $350. A tax filer with a dependent gets an extra $350. Single filers earning between $75,000 and $125,000 get $250 refunds, and households between $150,000 and $250,000 in income that file jointly receive $500, with a dependent getting an extra $250. Single taxpayers earning up to $250,000, and joint filers earning up to $500,000, are also eligible for refunds. Supplemental Security Income recipients would also get some extra money. California’s homeownership rate, at about 55%, is quite similar to New York’s 54%. The 3.9% sales tax on diesel fuel is also suspended in California, with commercial and farm vehicle owners intended as beneficiaries.

Governor Newsom’s original budget plan, submitted in March, proposed that residents get debit cards worth up to $400, based on motor vehicle registrations. The Legislature rejected that plan in favor of the income tax rebate.

In New York, no plan to add further relief from either the governor or the Legislature occurred following the April budget, even as inflation worsened. Inaction persisted all the way to the end of the regular legislative session despite the state budget division presenting its Enacted Budget Financial Plan in late May showing the state sitting on staggering sums of money.

The closing balance for Fiscal Year 2022 (end of March) in the General Fund was $33 billion, with $14.78 billion available, including $2 billion set to be added to the state’s eviction relief program and provide for other emergency needs like foreclosures and utility bills. There is also over $18 billion in two special accounts (Extraordinary Monetary Settlements and Pass-Through Entity Personal Income Tax Credits-PTET/PIT) for which there are special plans. The General Fund balances don’t include another $8 billion in federal funds left from the American Rescue Plan, which was passed by President Biden and Congress and the state seeks to use over the coming three years.

In May I wrote about New York’s budget plans and the significant influx of revenue beyond projections coming into the state treasury, and offered a proposal to provide income tax rebates that bears a rather uncanny resemblance to the deal California has now reached. I also suggested further cuts to gasoline taxes and mass transit discounts for New Yorkers to help drivers and non-drivers.

With several months of additional information on tax receipts and state spending, my projection that there would be about $4 billion above the Enacted Budget remained accurate, including $2 billion in funds beyond both the Executive Budget final updates and the adopted budget (see State Comptroller May 2022 cash report).

Governor Hochul’s decision to pull the trigger on the state’s property tax rebate in June instead of October effectively brought the state’s inflation relief package to a close, along with the gas tax suspension that began in June. It’s unfortunate because there is so much money available the state could still offer more help, even while acknowledging it needs to keep most of its cash stored away in reserve in case of a recession.

Local health care spending spurs economic activity (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As leaders of two of Brooklyn’s largest health systems – representing six hospitals, employing almost 14,000 individuals, and with combined non-personnel spending of over $655M per year – we understand firsthand the role healthcare institutions play in supporting the health and wealth of our communities. This is why we have made an unprecedented commitment to procure 10% of our non-clinical goods and services from local minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBEs) by 2030.

According to a new report by non-profit Brooklyn Communities Collaborative, our joint commitment has the potential to generate $35-40 million in new annual revenue for local businesses.

Hospitals are inextricably linked to the communities they serve, creating a virtuous circle that strengthens health systems and the neighborhoods around them. As two of the largest private employers in Brooklyn with significant spending power, anchor institutions like ours can help level the playing field and catalyze local economic growth.

Healthcare makes up nearly 20% of the U.S. economy. In New York State alone, healthcare accounts for 10% of annual GDP, and continues to experience record job growth as its fastest growing industry. Given their tremendous economic importance, healthcare systems and hospitals have the unique ability to drive economic opportunity at-large and for emerging and established MWBEs.

Leveraging the economic power of hospitals to generate local wealth is a key lever to address structural drivers of poor health. We know that individuals’ zip code affects their access to quality education, housing options, rent levels, exposure to violence, crime, and toxins, as well as levels of social capital – all of which are key determinants of health. Addressing non-medical needs significantly improves individual and population health, and placing an emphasis on such initiatives is just as imperative to our communities’ wellbeing as improvements in medical care.

The recent report released by Brooklyn Communities Collaborative notes that local procurement can generate twice as much recirculation of revenue in the local economy and up to double the number of jobs per dollar of non-local procurement. Brooklyn hospitals alone yield up to $2 billion in spending power annually — an opportunity for transformation we cannot afford to overlook.

Targeted procurement has the potential to make a transformative impact across the city, particularly in Brooklyn, where more than 50% of households of color would be unable to make ends meet if their income is interrupted. But make no mistake, procurement in itself is not a panacea. Creating a more equitable economy will take a number of strategic interventions, analysis of successes and challenges, and the flexibility to adapt to bumps in the road.

Today, we are focused on working directly with businesses to identify issues and develop targeted solutions. We will share advice on penetrating and navigating the hospital procurement market, work with community organizations to create bridge loans and develop the local workforce, and help these businesses scale and manage the procurement process from start to finish.

Together, we can build healthy communities, generate economic opportunity and continue to provide high-quality patient care.

***
LaRay Brown is the CEO of One Brooklyn Health, which includes Interfaith Medical Center, Brookdale Hospital, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, two large nursing homes, and several ambulatory care centers. Kenneth D. Gibbs is the CEO of Maimonides Health and serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Greater New York Hospital Association and Chair of the Board of Healthfirst. On Twitter @BKCommunities.

A street renaming (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City is experiencing multiple overlapping public safety crises. The city has crisis levels of homelessness, record levels of drug overdoses, ongoing COVID-19 challenges, and widespread concerns about evictions, wage theft, climate change, and more — but the city agencies doing the most significant hiring are police and corrections.

We need new investments in producing safe, healthy, and economically secure communities that will also create thousands of new jobs for New York City residents. We propose the creation of a New Deal for Public Safety that would both invest in new infrastructures for community safety and create thousands of new jobs in professions designed to help lift up individuals and communities rather than criminalizing them.

The newly-adopted fiscal year 2023 New York City budget shows reductions to funding for various essential services while giving police and corrections budgets a pass. Compared to the latest modified budget for the current fiscal year (FY22), Mayor Adams and the City Council have reduced spending on homelessness services by $414.5 million, parks by $11.5 million, education by $215 million, sanitation by $171.8 million, and public hospitals by $1.6 billion, while holding the budgets of the NYPD and Department of Corrections steady at a combined $13 billion.

Part of the support the mayor has received is because many working class families -- including his own -- have come to rely on jobs in policing and corrections as a ticket into the middle class. Police officers make over $40,000 to start and within six years can see earnings as high as $100,000 with overtime and differentials, not to mention excellent benefits and the possibility of retirement after 25 years. These are very high salaries for young people with only two years of college or similar military experience; and correction officers earn even more.

The high salaries and employment stability operate as a kind of “poverty draft,” drawing in young people who see few other options on the job market for those with sometimes minimal qualifications. It also offers the allure of “doing something positive for the community.” Many young people from struggling neighborhoods want careers where they can be part of the solution and since the police and correction departments are often hiring and pay high wages, they are drawn to them.

I, David, have faced these pressures first-hand. I wanted a job that would help my community, had potential for advancement, and that would be able to support my growing family. I worked as a home health aide — a caring profession that the community needs —but that didn’t pay enough, and I had to supplement the income by driving for Uber and Lyft.

My family and friends experienced similar constraints. Loved ones who had initially wanted to work in health care or education found that the low salaries those jobs offered, as well as the expensive education needed, simply squeezed their families too tight, and instead turned to jobs as cops or correction officers — careers that have high wages, security, and good benefits.

The constant availability of policing jobs relative to other professions reinforces the idea that policing is how we produce safe and secure communities. Young people look to criminal justice academic programs because they know there will be jobs in this area. Jobs in libraries, youth services, parks and recreation, public health, and other related professions either require significantly higher educational certification or pay much less, and none of them are as readily available. We need to change that equation.

To start, we need to move away from the idea that policing is the primary way to create safety.

Over the last several decades we have seen that there is inadequate funding for basic social needs. We have closed down recreation centers, defunded mental health services, skewed housing markets to benefit wealthy developers in ways that produced mass homelessness, underfunded schools, and turned a blind eye to predatory lending practices, environmental degradation, stolen wages, and discriminatory and exploitative landlords.

Instead of trying to solve our city’s problems by investing in community programs, we’ve put a huge amount of money into policing and used the police to manage the consequences of disinvestment in communities. We have turned the problems of homelessness, mental health challenges, harmful substance use, youth unemployment, and failed schools into problems of crime and disorder to be managed by policing. There are more NYPD personnel in New York City schools than counselors of all types combined. This is a crisis of priorities that must be addressed.

The solution to our challenges is not more policing and incarceration. It is more community-based mental health services, substance abuse specialists, school counselors and support staff, community-based violence interrupters, construction of supportive housing, and creation of good-paying jobs.

By rethinking the delivery of public safety we can also create new pipelines for employment for young people. We propose that New York City commit to a long-term hiring plan in professions that will create real public safety.

Under our proposed New Deal for Public Safety, we would create 5,000 new positions a year over the next five years for a total of 25,000 permanent new community-based public safety jobs in government agencies and local non-profits.

We could immediately expand the number of jobs that directly contribute to building healthier and safer communities. Many of these jobs would not require any more education or certifications than police officers, including jobs as youth recreation workers, community anti-violence specialists, library support staff, homeless outreach workers, and drug related harm-reduction workers. Wages, benefits, and job security for these jobs should be increased to match what we pay police. We also need new investments in building, rehabilitating, and maintaining public housing, community centers, and schools that could put thousands to work in well paid unionized construction jobs.

In addition, we need to expand hiring in areas that require more education such as mental health outreach workers, school counselors, drug treatment specialists, and trauma counselors. These jobs are essential to any plan to reduce violence and disorder. In order to prepare young people for these careers we need to partner with CUNY to create new programs to train and certify those who are interested in helping foster public safety. Once it is clear that these jobs exist, students will flock to them.

New hiring could take place in schools to meet the national standards for school counselors (4,000 hires) as well as placing restorative justice coordinators in each city school (2,000). We could create community-based mental health outreach teams (1,000), expand the city’s community violence reduction programs (2,000), enhance harm reduction efforts like needle exchange, safer usage facilities, and peer to peer outreach (1,000), expand parks and recreation programing (5,000), build and staff supportive housing (5,000), create community-based family support centers to address the problems of domestic violence, teen runaways, and children entering foster care (2,000), expand youth programs in libraries (1,000), create a network of rape crisis centers (1,000), and increase additional drug treatment capacity (1,000).

This would need to be baseline funding, not one-time investments and should come from both local and state government. Too often, community-based support services are seen as short-term add-ons or discretionary priorities for a particular City Council member. This leads to inefficiencies due to turnover, start-up time, and lack of consistent support for people in crisis.

I, David, have worked with several community-based family support programs in Brooklyn that were consistently under-funded and ultimately shut down based on the whims of policymakers. The result is a lack of confidence in these types of programs and an inability to produce robust long term positive effects.

Creating a new, permanent community-based public safety infrastructure will not only improve the quality of life of all New Yorkers, it will also create important new pathways for stable careers, allowing us to move away from our reliance on policing and jails.

***
David Alexis is a candidate for New York State Senate in Brooklyn’s 21st District. Alex S. Vitale is professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing. On Twitter @David4BK & @avitale.

Gov. Hochul's signature (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)

The families in my district need – and deserve – smaller classes for their children. The Legislature has overwhelmingly approved a measure that will set new class size limits in New York City public schools. It is now up to Governor Hochul to ensure that the city brings these benefits to our kids.

For years New York City’s children have had to deal with class sizes among the largest in the state, and my district in Queens is no exception.

Pre-covid, average class size in the more than 30 schools in my district was significantly over the new proposed limits -- 20 for most elementary classes, going up to 25 for later grades and high school academic subjects. 

Despite enrollment losses since the pandemic – losses that lower class sizes could help address -- most of my district’s schools are still above the new limits the Legislature has proposed.

Lower class sizes have been a long-term goal of the state, part of our efforts to finally bring the city into compliance with the goals of the Contract for Excellence, enacted by the Legislature 15 years ago to help make sure that the state fairly funded our neediest schools. Instituting these changes on the city level is about equity -- it’s about bringing the standards that so many of the rest of our state’s children already benefit from to children living in the five boroughs.

Parents know that smaller classes can make a huge difference in their children’s lives. National studies of well-run programs in places like Wisconsin and Tennessee have shown the potential for children’s academic growth when teachers have more time to devote to each student.

The narrative that we have to choose between programs like music and small class sizes is a false choice rooted in a dishonest austerity mindset, especially given the windfall of unspent federal covid funds. It is unfortunate that the city government has been so quick to say that we cannot give the best to our children. 

First of all, the city and the Department of Education – with more than $1 billion in additional state funding and more than $4.5 billion in unspent federal covid funds -- can afford to lower class sizes.

The program will be phased in over five years, so the cost of an additional 2,000 new teachers each of those years is not a budget-breaker. Even when fully implemented, the estimated $1 billion in new salary costs amount to less than one percent of the overall city budget.

Space for smaller classes will undoubtedly be an issue, but one that can be solved. 

The teachers union, working with the system’s annual space survey of school principals, has found that nine out of ten school buildings could meet these new class size guidelines by better using their current space, including by using rooms now devoted to administration and other purposes.

Eventually, new construction will be necessary, but the number of new classes needed is well below the new rooms the system has already planned to build over the next five years.

New York’s history is full of things that ‘couldn’t be done’ – for logistical, financial, or administrative reasons – until we decided that they could.

Take universal pre-K and 3K, for instance. For years officials complained that these programs were too expensive, there wasn’t enough space or demand, there weren’t enough teachers -- the objections went on and on.

But eventually, the political will was found. Last year, more than 90,000 children – including more than 500 in my district alone – took part in 3K and pre-K programs, a huge benefit, particularly for working families. In the same spirit, this year’s enacted state budget allocated a total of $7 billion over four years to expand these efforts statewide.

The fight for fair funding for New York City students has been going on for decades. The promise of lower class sizes was made in 2007. Now, in the form of Senate bill S9460, my colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly have, with a nearly-unanimous vote, made good on that pledge.

That bill is ready and waiting for Governor Hochul. Her signature can make the promise of smaller classes a reality.

***
State Senator Jessica Ramos represents the 13th district in Queens. On Twitter @JessicaRamos.

Garbage (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

In a recent TikTok video, a woman opens a giant cardboard box and pulls out layers and layers of bubble wrap, only to reveal four more tiny cardboard boxes, each of which contain a single napkin ring. The caption reads, “Am I on PUNK’D? Ashton… Sweetie… you can come out now…” 

Videos regularly circulate on social media that demonstrate these kinds of egregious examples of excess packaging from online retailers. To make matters worse, these types of materials are often either not recyclable or aren’t accepted in most curbside recycling programs. While some companies have been taking steps to create more sustainable packaging, this viral shaming hasn’t been enough to enact meaningful change. 

Policymakers in Albany have sought to make companies accountable for the packaging waste they create by forcing them to cover the cost of recycling the materials they ship out. But as the legislative session ended and officials returned to their home districts, bills from State Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblymember Steven Englebrigh that would do just that failed to work their way through the Legislature, and that was after a similar policy had already been stripped from this year’s final State Budget.

These bills would have brought New York in line with states like Maine, Colorado, and Oregon that already have policies like this called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Those states have seen positive results: local governments can afford to provide recycling services to residents and companies are encouraged to cut back on the amount of packaging they introduce into the waste cycle in the first place. 

On the national level, the EPA recently announced $375 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to be dedicated towards grant programs for public service announcements, education, and other initiatives that will support a circular economy. This funding will further incentivize the adoption of responsible recycling practices across the nation — a blueprint on how government should tackle our most pressing challenges. The urgency for advancing recycling practices is being heeded by states across the country and our partners in the federal government; New York should not hesitate to follow suit.

Many may be thinking: how will this work? After all, this is a drastic — and needed — change to a practice that touches the lives of almost every single New Yorker. How will this be enforced efficiently, especially for companies like Amazon that ship out millions of packages on a daily basis? In short, through direct or indirect reimbursements, companies will pay the state for carrying out the recycling process; the government will also incentivize the use of environmentally-sound packages by offering a lower fee to those who use or decide to implement sustainable packaging.

Here at Recycle Track Systems, we provide haulers, corporations, and professional sports organizations with actionable metrics and education to improve their diversion programs for recycling and organics (or food waste). We’ve found the large companies we work with, similar to the many who would be impacted by policies around Extended Producer Responsibility, have not been resistant to refining their waste management practices; most simply need some direction and the tools to execute on their plan.

This leads me to believe in the companies who do business here, and that they will be receptive to this piece of legislation that benefits the state, environment, and even their operations in the short and long term.

At the same time, it has become abundantly clear that we haven’t been able to rely on industry as a whole to adopt a more sustainable approach to packaging — nor do we have the time to wait for such an epiphany. The climate crisis is arguably the biggest challenge facing New York, the United States, and the world; it is incumbent upon us to adopt an all-hands-on-deck approach to meet this challenge.

Although EPR legislation didn’t make it over the finish line in Albany, it rests on the shoulders of our elected leaders to continue to push for this legislation so they can work alongside packagers to lead New York towards a cleaner, more sustainable, and prosperous future.

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Gregory Lettieri is CEO of Recycle Track Systems.

Belmont and beyond, on Long Island (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

To housing advocates, the solution to the New York City region’s affordability crisis is frustratingly simple enough: build, build, build, and build some more. To them, the suburbs and the single-family homeowners therein serve as selfishly guarded relics from an era long ago that aren’t doing their fair share.

But painting the long vexing issue of housing affordability with such a supply-side broad brush ignores a fundamental tenet of sound urban planning – balance, and the need to accommodate growth that is both environmentally and economically sustainable for local governments to properly manage in the years ahead.

Working towards this goal is especially important in areas that have key infrastructural limitations – a reality often ignored in a discussion regularly focused only on social justice or economic issues.

As the frenzied housing market within the New York City metropolitan region proves to be more resilient than expected when faced with threats of a looming recession and 30-year fixed mortgage rates that are north of 6%, housing advocates have more aggressively urged suburban localities to loosen local land use restrictions to allow for more residential units.

The issue that often goes unmentioned in the discussion is that many suburban localities have struggled with the environmental ramifications of the growth that was allowed in the freewheeling years following the post-war housing boom. These lasting echoes of growth that planners had warned about in the 1970s have been felt in the decades since, whether in the form of harmful algal blooms along the coasts or through the diminishing air quality that sprawl has wrought.

During the post-war years, tens of thousands of tract homes were built across the New York metropolitan area, rapidly consuming farmland and open spaces with little regard for the social, economic, and environmental challenges that would arise. The rate of growth was so frantic that forward-thinking planners who worked in local governments spent their careers preserving what open spaces were left.

On Long Island in particular, the breadth of the impacts of such growth have become more concerning as we begin to fully understand the lasting legacies of rapid suburban expansion.

Long Island’s drinking water supply, sourced from underground aquifers, remains under constant threat from both known and emerging contaminants, thanks to wide swaths of housing and industrial developments that lack proper wastewater treatment from public sewers. Worse, thanks to the hydrodynamics within these groundwater stores, we are now just seeing the environmental ramifications of development patterns that occurred during the 1980s, with more impacts from later developments yet to emerge.

Recently, I argued in Newsday that blaming local land use regulations for today’s market conditions denies the fact that zoning can serve as a powerful mechanism many local governments have used to curb the worst of sprawl by balancing necessary growth, protecting the environment, and preserving quality of life. Zoning is a tool for policymakers to wield – and a drastic relaxation of key land use regulations without a broader cohesive strategy that is regional in scope will do more harm than good - potentially resulting in the over-proliferation of sprawling higher-density development patterns. 

In turn, such unchecked development can amplify the challenges of economic stagnation and environmental decline that New York’s suburbs already face.

And as the ongoing housing crunch continues to build, localities will be pressured to further loosen land use restrictions. For many first-time homebuyers, prices have long been out of reach, which in turn threatens the attractiveness of these communities for private investment and the viability of local talent pools.

There are no easy solutions, but a sensible discussion on housing cannot be had without factoring in the very real constraints to growth that suburbs face – and the present need of suburban communities to reinvent themselves for the 21st century.

Moving forward, it’s important to remember that boosting suburban housing inventory is merely one piece of the complicated housing picture, and does little to quell  the unique factors that make the New York area such an expensive place to live or address the environmental ills that sprawl continues to bring.

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Richard Murdocco teaches within Stony Brook University’s public policy graduate program and School of Atmospheric and Marine Sciences, and writes on land use and development issues at www.TheFoggiestIdea.org. On Twitter @TheFoggiestIdea and @RichMurdocco.

Children get support from NYC Kids RISE (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Across the five boroughs this graduation season, students are closing out the school year and beginning a new chapter in their educational journeys. But we’re not just talking about the students eager to throw their caps in the air. For the first time in our city’s history, the vast majority of New York City public school kindergarteners are stepping up to first grade with NYC Scholarship Accounts that have an initial financial investment through NYC Kids RISE and the City of New York.

The inaugural, citywide class of the Save for College Program may not be graduating until 2034, but their toolbox now includes a financial asset for college and career training, opportunities to gain more over time, and reinforced expectations of success from across the city’s neighborhoods and institutions along the way. 

Higher education is a critical component of increasing economic mobility and reducing inequality, but for too many, the prospects of higher education have remained out of reach. For others who do pursue higher education, their decision comes at a high price. Today, 45 million Americans have $1.7 trillion in student debt. This reality can deter young people from accessing higher education, exacerbating a widening wealth gap in New York City and across the country, with communities of color shouldering most of the burden. 

There are so many different factors that impact a child’s chance of future success, and many of these factors come into play outside a student’s school. We also know that neighborhoods differ dramatically in investment and the ingredients that promote economic mobility and income growth. And research suggests that social capital -- the strength of social networks and community involvement -- plays as important a role as financial capital. 

As the White House and Congress continue to debate solutions to address the student debt crises and college affordability, New York City isn’t waiting. The Save for College Program was created to not only provide public school students with a financial asset for their higher education, but to tap into and support the set of individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions that make up the neighborhood ecosystems and social infrastructure around a child’s life. 

Consider how Sunnyside Community Services -- a community-based organization serving students and families in western Queens -- took some of our youngest students in pilot communities on college trips, reinforcing the idea that you have to “see it to be it.” Or how Make the Road NY’s Parent Committee organized parent-to-parent education sessions so that families could hear and understand the rewards structure from a trusted source. How Seamless got its diners from across the five boroughs to “Donate the Change” directly into students’ NYC Scholarship Accounts, or how tenant leaders in Queens organized their community to raise $1,000 for each participating student that lives in Astoria Houses. Consider how the School Team led by the Parent Coordinator at PS 212 has already worked with over 85% of families in her school to help families activate and view their account for the very first time -- a critical step in helping families plan for a child’s future. In our latest example, just this month Flushing Bank is contributing $15,000 to the NYC Scholarship Accounts of 140 kindergarteners in their local community. 

Through the Save for College Program, we’ve not only created a means to invest in our students from their earliest days in school, but we’ve created a way to invest in the financial and social resiliency of New York City neighborhoods, through a platform that recognizes and supports other stakeholders and their critical and connected roles as part of an ecosystem.

Last month, Mayor Eric Adams joined NYC Kids RISE and local elected officials in the Bronx to celebrate that 97% of the city’s public school kindergarteners now have an NYC Scholarship Account and each year this number will grow. Whether you recognize your role or not, every New Yorker is already playing a part in the systems that either support or impede a student’s chance of success.

You now have an opportunity to support students in and across your community, and to get involved in building out this platform to its full potential. If you’re a parent of a kindergartener, you can activate your child’s account and learn more about the reward structure. If you’re part of a community-based organization, consider integrating the Save for College Program into your services, and if you’re part of a business or corporation, your employer can organize or contribute to a community scholarship. The opportunities to plug in are truly endless, and we can’t wait for you to join us. 

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Sideya Sherman is Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Equity. Debra-Ellen Glickstein is the Founding Executive Director of nonprofit NYC Kids RISE. On Twitter @NYCKidsRISE.

Pride (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

This June in New York City unfolded with a welcome, if not obviously connected, set of events: Pride Month, and the new Housing Blueprint from the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. As two transgender advocates who worked together last year on an LGBTQ+ housing plan, we see a number of ideas that our community has championed reflected in the new Housing Blueprint – a plan that will directly benefit LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

First, it’s important to note the disparities that LGBTQ+ people in New York face when it comes to housing and poverty. As a recent report from the New York State Department of Health shows, LGBTQ+ adults are more likely than non-LGBTQ+ populations to experience low educational attainment, incomes below $25,000, unemployment, and disability. All of these factors contribute to a greater need for safe and affordable housing for members of our communities. As our housing report highlighted, LGBTQ+ community enclaves, the very neighborhoods that make New York City the LGBTQ+ haven that it is, are dependent on the availability of affordable housing.

A cornerstone of the LGBTQ+ housing plan, and the administration’s blueprint, is the dire need to eliminate bureaucratic barriers that both limit the city’s ability to create affordable housing and get people placed once that housing is built. When convening LGBTQ+ homeless community members last year to devise our housing plan, we heard heart-rending testimonies about decreasing availability of affordable units and how difficult it has been for homeless LGBTQ+ New Yorkers (disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary) to get from shelter to housing placement. 

The blueprint includes a number of regulatory changes that would help create more affordable homes: easing burdens on legalizing basement apartments and smaller-sized apartment units and ridding ourselves of archaic parking space requirements that reduce the number of affordable units that can be included in new development. The blueprint also commits to tracking and reducing the amount of time it takes to place New Yorkers into affordable homes. For a community in desperate need of affordable housing, these are changes LGBTQ+ New Yorkers need to see. 

We noted before that LGBTQ+ enclaves can only exist where housing is affordable. Our community, disproportionately low-income as it is, finds affordable housing stock and builds strength and safety in numbers. This has been the trend for over a hundred years in New York City, and it still exists in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, Jackson Heights, and communities in the South Bronx. But affordability in these neighborhoods is in peril.

The new blueprint’s emphasis on equitable zoning changes to distribute affordability means LGBTQ+ people can maintain footholds where they’re living now, but also find other safe neighborhoods to move to and build the kind of critical mass that has always been key to LGBTQ+ communities.

As advocates and people who talk to community members about politics and government, we also know how disinvested and jaded many LGBTQ+ people can be about government processes, especially as it relates to housing. We, the authors, have long promoted, individually and collectively, political education work. So, it is profoundly heartening to see an emphasis in the administration’s blueprint on tenant democracy – along with new capital commitments to affordable housing and incoming support for NYCHA developments. All of this – tenant democracy informing how to spend money and improve communities – means that low-income LGBTQ+ people in public housing will have real power to improve their lives.

The first Prides were celebrations of new political possibility. We see so much in this Housing Blueprint that’s aligned with our own visions of LGBTQ+ community housing needs that we’re taking a page from our forebears and, coming out of June’s Pride month, celebrating new tools that empower our communities, and keep New York City as the LGBTQ+ mecca it has historically been.

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Andy Bowen is Founder of Bowen Public Affairs Consulting. Sean Coleman is Founder and Executive Director of Destination Tomorrow, the Bronx LGBTQ+ Center. On Twitter @AndyMBowen & @RamblinRantic.