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In Booming Life Sciences Sector, a Model for New York Offshore Wind


Gov. Hochul makes an offshore wind announcement (photo: office of Governor Hochul)


With 500,000 acres set for offshore wind development in the New York Bight and Governor Kathy Hochul’s investment of $500 million to support the industry earlier this year, New York is well-positioned to scale the sector from the ground-up the right way: with a focus on equity, community benefits, and reversing the historic impacts of environmental racism, which for decades concentrated noxious infrastructure in predominantly lower-income communities of color that had no say in the process.

But to realize an equitable transition to wind energy and sustain a thriving industry, we need more than traction within the private sector. We need New York policymakers to make the same all-in commitment the city and state made over the past decade in boosting another high-performing sector with untapped potential: life sciences.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) recently announced the city is home to more life science employment opportunities than any metropolitan region in the country. That’s a quantum leap from the 1990s. So, what changed? 

Over the past 15 years, the city and state implemented a comprehensive strategy, encompassing a variety of programmatic initiatives and cross-sector collaboration — from sponsoring the development of a world-class technology innovation and academic hub on Roosevelt Island, to offering incentives for commercial life science development through the EDC’s IDA program, to facilitating internship programs to bring youth into companies, to committing $1 billion through the city’s LifeSci NYC initiative; to supporting new life science businesses in New York through the state’s Life Sciences Tax Credit program. 

For offshore wind, we need the same kind of thoughtful programmatic interventions, including academic partnerships supporting energy research and workforce development, city- and state-funded incubators, internships for young adults, industry networking events and education programs, and training and support for MWBEs seeking to break into the sector.

Some of this work is underway. The New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has set a precedent for inclusive development by mandating 30% MWBE inclusion. Last year NYSERDA also developed, with the support of my team at Karp Strategies, an offshore wind curriculum for teenagers that is now available online as a resource for any middle school or high school classroom in New York. The NYCEDC has initiated a training program we are helping develop designed to upskill MWBE firms. 

But there is still so much work to do on top of these first steps to set New York up as a clean energy leader. Here are three policies the city and state can set in motion now:

First, just as the Bloomberg administration provided Cornell Tech 12 acres of city-owned land when it won the bid to transform Roosevelt Island into an applied sciences’ campus in 2011, so the city and state today can look at property that they control, and prioritize land disposition across sites that could support the development of clean energy.

EDC has taken a step in this direction, issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to analyze an unused site on Staten Island for potential wind energy use. Turbine components can stretch the length of a football field so proactively addressing the issue of land availability, especially waterfront property, would help mitigate a crucial bottleneck in the growth of offshore wind.

Second, the city and state should ramp up efforts to create the green and blue workforce we need for industries like offshore wind and solar to thrive. Let’s build dramatically on the state’s investment in an Offshore Wind Training Institute through a partnership of SUNY’s Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook University on Long Island. 

It is critical that educational opportunities are available to people in every part of the state and we should continue investing in training programs at public colleges as Governor Hochul has at LaGuardia, Hudson Valley, and Kingsborough. Beyond partnering with academia, state and local governments should be working with employers to expand the career development opportunities available to local residents, and holding developers accountable for prioritizing workforce development in their plans.

Finally, despite New York state’s nation-leading investment in offshore wind, the reality is $500 million only scratches the surface of the funding we need to compensate for chronic underinvestment in the port infrastructure that we must now modernize. The city and state need to go well beyond the $1 billion that New York City alone has committed to fostering the life sciences industry in order to address deferred maintenance that will choke the growth of offshore wind.

With so much momentum behind the growth of New York’s offshore wind industry at the city, state, and federal levels, now is the time to lean into an equitable transition to a cleaner energy system that delivers a windfall of shared economic benefits. The City and State should continue to seize this golden opportunity.

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Rebecca Karp is Managing Principal of Karp Strategies.

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Keeping Kids Engaged in Summer, Developing a Lifelong Habit of Giving Back


A family volunteers with Bronx is Blooming, a grantee of The New York Community Trust


School children spend months dreaming about the start of summer vacation — a magical time uncluttered by the concerns of homework, teachers, and early bedtimes.

For their parents, however, summer inevitably conjures up fears of a familiar two-word phrase: “I’m bored!”

Thankfully, there are ways to engage children in worthwhile activities that teach valuable life lessons and keep them entertained during summer’s dog days.

One way to do that is by introducing them to volunteerism and charitable giving.

Philanthropy can be a powerful way to share values — opening a path to discussions about social issues and our collective responsibility to make the world a better place.

It’s a way to learn about the world and each other — and when it’s experienced at an early age, it’s a habit that sticks. When children learn the value of giving, they tend to carry that lesson into adulthood.

Here are some tips to help you and your family discover new ways to work together and share the joy of helping others this summer:

Nurture the Youngest Donors
If children have developed the motor skills to hold a dollar in their hands, they have the capacity to give that dollar away. 

Find ways to bring giving into everyday life. You can have your children help you pick items for a food drive and drop them off together, this can precede discussions about giving direct financial support.

Invite Your Children to Give
Ask your child to identify a cause they care about and then, together, research organizations working in that area. This helps foster their feeling of ownership and autonomy.

This is also an opportunity for children to learn how to better understand how nonprofits work or make difficult choices among competing needs.

Follow an organization together to see what kind of impact your gift has made.

Some of the donors at my organization, The New York Community Trust, create donor-advised funds for older children and give them the opportunity to make choices about where to grant money in the fund.

Learn Together
Organize a family documentary night or group reading on a particular issue to spur conversation about giving or invite family members to attend events with you.

For example, The Trust hosts briefings on philanthropic giving throughout the year that are open to donors and their guests.

Establish a Family Tradition
Create a family giving ritual where all come together during the summer and discuss how the family will make grants in response to current needs and events.

For younger children, serve a special treat as an incentive to participate fully.

You also can schedule it at another time of the year — for example, the day after Thanksgiving — so that it becomes a tradition.

Get Hands On
While giving money is important, so, too, is giving time. One of the best ways for children to learn about giving back is through volunteer activities. Many organizations have a difficult time finding volunteers during the summer months.

New York Cares, a volunteering database for New York City, allows you to filter volunteer opportunities by location, dates, and family friendliness. Young children respond to ritual and repetition, so if you are able to engage in these activities regularly, all the better. For example, both of my boys had a volunteerism requirement at their high schools.

It’s never too early to teach your children the value of giving, whether that means time, talent, or treasure.

Summer is a great time to plant the seed for a lifetime of giving by teaching your child the value of philanthropy.

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John Oddy is vice president for donor relations at The New York Community Trust, the community foundation for New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. On Twitter @NYCommTrust.

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New York’s Housing Crisis is Worse Than Ever; It’s Time to Send in the Cavalry


Housing to be built (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


New York’s housing crisis is at a fever pitch – and there is new data to prove it. In a new report, the national pro-housing group Up For Growth found that New York State’s housing shortage worsened dramatically during the 2010s.

The Empire State was 161,925 units short in 2012, but 233,592 units short just seven years later. The New York City metropolitan area, which includes parts of several states, fared even worse, with the shortage ballooning from 245,000 to 342,000 units in the same period. With the pandemic economy and inflation rates, these figures are surely even worse in 2022.

None of this is a surprise to anyone who has sought an apartment in New York lately, but it does raise an important question: how did this happen?

Unfortunately, the answer is simple: we have not built enough housing, in large part because local governments have made it illegal to build apartment buildings throughout most of the region, including many parts of the five boroughs. Low-income households have been hurt the most by this artificial scarcity, as they are outbid by high earners for pricey single-family homes. It is time to finally reverse that trend and create the affordable and sustainable city and state that New Yorkers deserve.

The need is urgent. Consider the results of the city’s most recent Housing and Vacancy Survey –between 1991 and 2020, adjusted for inflation, the city’s overall median monthly rent went from $900 to $1,500. And that is just for occupied units – if you need an apartment, it’s much worse. The median renter household in New York City makes $50,000 a year but would need to make $110,000 a year to afford the $2,750 median asking rent for available apartments.

Half of the city’s renter households spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and a third of renters spend more than 50% of income on rent.

Add this up and you get a fair housing disaster. As the Regional Plan Association has shown, single-family zoning – the most restrictive type of zoning – is directly correlated with segregation throughout the New York City metro area. Specifically, the more single-family zoning a community has, the more likely it is to be almost exclusively white. This trend also holds in New York City.

However, Up For Growth’s research also helps us imagine a better future. It shows that if local governments reformed this exclusionary zoning to allow enough multifamily buildings, New York would see an additional $116.7 billion of gross domestic product statewide, $56.1 billion of additional personal income for New Yorkers, and 40,248 new jobs across just 20 years.

In other words, more housing is good for equity, fair housing, and the economy. It is a win-win-win.

At the same time, we shouldn’t minimize the huge efforts made by city planners and policymakers. According to a recent Furman Center report, New York City produced 185,000 units of multifamily housing between 2010 and 2020. Of those, almost 30% were affordable units for households making 80% of Area Median Income (AMI) or less.

The development of 60,000 units of affordable housing is an enormous achievement, and is the product of a highly-productive public-private partnership between the industry and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). And there are promising signs under the Adams administration’s new plan.

First, Mayor Adams and the City Council are making an unprecedented investment of $32 billion in affordable housing over the next ten years, with $22 billion in capital for development/preservation and $10 billion for the Public Housing Preservation Trust in order to renovate NYCHA units.

Second, the mayor has proposed the City of Yes, a set of zoning text amendments that would increase the allowable floor area and height of affordable buildings, while ditching expensive parking requirements that eat subsidy dollars. This effort will also help fair housing efforts by giving affordable housing an advantage when compared with market-rate buildings.

Third, HPD is looking to become more efficient and get tenants into units faster. It will no longer reverify every new tenant’s income, instead moving to an audit system that will cut a time-consuming, unnecessary step from the lease-up process. They are also moving the Section 8 briefing online, eliminating the demeaning Section 8 absent parent form, and killing the practice of requiring a person to sleep in a homeless shelter for four months before being eligible for housing.

While the city can’t do this alone – Albany too must step up – it does have the tools to take care of the area of greatest need: the intense shortage of deeply affordable housing, where there is virtually no vacancy at the lowest rent. As we have seen, building more housing is a realistic area of tremendous opportunity for New York – and it is one that we simply cannot afford to miss.

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Jolie Milstein is the President & CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, a trade organization representing more than 300 affordable housing professionals statewide. On Twitter @NYSAFAH.

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New York Must Expand the Definition of Primary Care Provider; The Governor Can Sign the Bill to Make It Happen


Gov. Hochul visits health care professionals (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Preventive health and primary care are the key to a healthy population, and programs like Medicaid are essential for New York State’s most vulnerable people to access this care. Unfortunately, in New York, physician assistants (PAs) are not recognized as primary care providers (PCPs) for Medicaid managed care patients.

And while I personally provide this care daily to this very patient population, this lack of recognition prevents me from being able to provide comprehensive care and makes me invisible if a Medicaid patient tries to search for a PCP through their health plan. While Medicaid managed care does not recognize PAs as PCPs, Medicare and commercial insurances, like United and Cigna, do.

To match the current realities of primary care in New York State, lawmakers have passed legislation permitting physician assistants to serve as primary care practitioners for purposes of Medicaid managed care plans—and now it awaits Governor Hochul's signature.

At my institution, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), PAs provide a significant amount of primary care. We work with the healthcare team, including physicians and nurses, but we often serve as the PCP. A looming shortage of primary care physicians that was prevalent before the pandemic has turned into a severe healthcare workforce shortage in the state, which is expected to worsen in coming years. In Health Provider Shortage Areas in the state, PAs are more likely than physicians to serve as primary care providers.

Like many PAs, my passion is caring for underserved populations, including LGBTQ+ and people living with HIV. These populations suffer lifelong health disparities ranging from increased mood and anxiety disorders, substance use, obesity, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and infectious diseases. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities identifies the LGBTQ+ community as a “health disparity population” largely due to their difficulty in finding accessible, unbiased care. Culturally competent providers are rare and desperately needed.

Following my PA education, I pursued certification as an HIV Specialist through the American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM). Here in New York, most people living with HIV with Medicaid are required to join a Medicaid Managed Care Plan, and through these plans, PCPs coordinate the individual’s entire care. Despite a health emergency and a worsening healthcare workforce shortage, a highly skilled, AAHIVM-certified PA cannot currently serve as a PCP for our most vulnerable people. Yet I could if the individual were insured by their employer. It’s time for that to change.

New York State is poised to sign into law legislation that will increase access to care by allowing physician assistants to serve as primary care providers to the communities who need it most. It is time for New York to support our healthcare workforce. Governor Hochul should sign this bill into law.

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Daniel Mulcahy, PA-C AAHIVS, lives in Queens.

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Better Late Than Never: Time for the Public Advocate to Convene COPIC


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.

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

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New York Should Increase STEM Education Funding for All Schools


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.

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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.

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California Outpaces New York in Equitable Inflation Relief


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.

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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.

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Leveraging the Power of Health Care Spending to Build Community Wealth in Brooklyn


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.

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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.

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A New Deal for Public Safety


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.

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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.

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With the Stroke of a Pen, Governor Hochul Can Bring Smaller Classes to New York City Schools


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.

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

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