New York State Senate-District 13: • John D. Sabini, New York Sate Senate • Hiram Monserrate, New York City Councilman, 21st District, Queens Other Races • New York State Assembly- District 21: Ethnic Politics in Changing Flushing
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The 13th Senate District in Queens was drawn after the 2000 census to create a Latino majority seat, but the first person elected to represent the district was John Sabini, a man of Italian descent.
“Some people tell you that it’s a Latino district, and we should have a Latino legislator. I believe it’s a diverse district, and people should be given an opportunity to choose who they want.”
Sabini is facing a strong challenger in Hiram Monserrate, Queen's first Latino city council member, a rare test of an incumbent in Albany.
Some have pointed Monserrate's Latino background as a particular strength in the diverse district encompassing Corona, Jackson Heights, and East Elmhurst, with a population that is slightly over half Latino. He has raised $177,000 through the end of July, outpacing Sabini, who has raised $143,000.
Monserrate acknowledged that historically New Yorkers have tended to vote along racial lines, but insists that that is not why he is running. Nor does he have major philosophical difference with Sabini.
“We have one of the most underserved communities," said Monserrate. "We need more resources, and we need someone who is going to go to Albany and bring those resources back. [Sabini] hasn’t done that.”
Sabini, however, maintains that he has delivered a solid performance as State Senator. “We gave a record we are proud of, and we are eager to get it out,” he said.
Both candidates agree that health care is one of the major challenges that their district faces, as the district has a large immigrant population and particularly high incidences of diabetes, tuberculosis, and HIV. As State Senator, Sabini has provided free testing and free referrals for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, hearing loss, and a number of other health conditions. In addition to expanding existing programs, he intends to provide community education programs about healthy living.
Monserrate, however, feels that Sabini is not securing enough funding from Albany for health care. As City Councilman, Monserrate has increased healthcare funding, providing funds for a new emergency room for Elmhurst Hospital, $1 million for a preventive infectious disease clinic, and $600,000 for a mobile mammography unit. Monserrate brought experts from Albany to explain recent changes to Medicare in different languages. He stresses the need to provide community education about the importance of healthy eating, annual checkups, and preventive care.
Sabini, who is on the education committee in the Senate, has voted against every piece of the state education budget this year, because he believes that it does not provide adequate funding for underperforming schools, as required by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. As State Senator, Sabini has obtained funds for 10,000 new school seats in the area, and has also led in the creation of a law that prohibits required state high stakes testing on religious holidays.
Monserrate believes that closing the digital divide is one of the most important areas of education reform. He plans to continue investing millions of dollars to continue upgrading the technology of local schools and to create computer labs throughout the district. He also stresses the importance of parental involvement in student education, a feat that is particularly difficult for parents who do not speak English. To increase facilitate such involvement, he fought for changes in Department of Education regulations to provide translation services for parents in the top eight languages, other than English, in New York City.
The Queens district is home to many small businesses and many entrepreneurs, and both candidates emphasize the need to provide support for small business owners. Sabini is focusing on expanding opportunities for women and minorities in business. He also is fighting to assist the restaurant and hospitality industry, which he argues have been hurt by the city's indoor smoking ban, and to support businesses in Woodside affected by the 2006 blackout, through low or no interest loans and restitution from Con Edison.
Monserrate emphasizes the need to promote “an atmosphere that doesn’t just benefit major corporate entities, but also small businesses.” For example, he challenged the New York Mets stadium proposal, which he felt originally did not provide adequate benefits or promise of employment to the community. The deal was then modified to include increased community benefits, jobs for Queens residents, and opportunities for women and minority owned businesses.
In regard to transportation, both candidates agreed in the need for a restructuring of the MTA, which has been challenged for illegal financial practices in recent years. Sabini felt such problems should be remedied by increased fiscal accountability on behalf of the MTA and other authorities, such as the Dormitory Authority and the Empire State Development Authority. Monserrate emphasized the need to increase local control of the MTA, so that more subway decisions could be made by the people who use the subway on a daily basis.
Sabini has emphasized the need to “fight for change in the structure of the way Albany has done business." He believes that party loyalty and a failure of the Assembly and the Senate to work together leads to inefficiency. He believes that the main change needed is increased oversight of committees, through adoption of a system similar to that of the New York City Council. He also advocates restrictions on the governor’s power to evoke messages of necessity, which allow the governor to bring a bill to immediate vote, forgoing the usual three day minimum waiting period. Some say this allows bills to avoid public scrutiny and be used as a part of the “gamesmanship” of last-minute deal-making.
Also believing the State Senate needs reform, Monserrate emphasizes the need to eliminate the Senate Majority Leader’s power to “star” a bill, thus unilaterally blocking floor action on it.
In addition, Monserrate advocates reform in the way the Senate disperses funds, which he believes is “at the detriment of New York [City], and is “unacceptable and illegal.” He felt that Sabini had failed to adequately address the issue of the distribution of funds, and that district residents have suffered as a result.
Both candidates criticize the current system of campaign fundraising and would like to see it replaced with public funding of elections. Monserrate said that New York City has a very good campaign financing system that could serve as a model for the state. Sabini concurred, saying “the influence of money in politics should be minimized.”
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Growing up in Brooklyn, Jason DePont had what seemed like a modest goal.
“I just wanted a job. I always wanted to work,” said the native of Spring Creek Gardens, a public housing project in East New York. “I thought it was the coolest thing.”
DePont’s first job came in the summer when he was just 14, working as a camp counselor nearby. The next year, he held a clerical position at a local non-profit group. This year DePont, now 18, is a paid summer intern at advertising company Mediaedge:CIA. All of these summer jobs came through the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which this year found positions for 42,000 New Yorkers between the ages of 14 and 21. [For a look at other ways New York's teenagers are making productive use of the summers see our related article: Teen Activists]
The youth employment program cannot keep pace with demand, however – 30,000 applicants were turned away this summer because the city couldn't afford to accommodate them. Many New York teenagers were probably not able to find work independently, say labor market experts. This is not just about what kids do this summer, say advocates, but whether they learn to be successful in the world of work. Many argue that programs that find summer jobs for teenagers should be seen as part of a larger anti-poverty strategy. The city may be particularly receptive to such arguments now, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg has appointed a commission on poverty which he says will draft such a comprehensive policy, releasing policy recommendations next month.
Subsidized summer programs have been on shaky ground since 1998, when the federal government decided to cut drastically the money it gave to summer jobs programs, opting instead to fund year-round jobs programs that it believed would yield better results. New York City is one of a few places where local officials have tried to fill the gap. In the last several years, the city has been working to provide a more stable stream of money to the program and to address concerns that many of the jobs are simply “make work” positions – cash assistance by another name.
“We don’t want them to always be dependent on a public jobs program,” said Jeanne Mullgrav, commissioner of the Department of Youth and Community Development, which runs the program. “We want them to have the skills to take their resume, market [themselves], and be employable.”
DePont, whose East New York neighborhood is known for high levels of unemployment – and the poverty and crime that come with it – believes he is on his way. He is not sure to where, of course. In the course of a half hour, he says he would like to be a cook, an actor, and a social worker. He wants to work in an office, but never be “stuck” there, and he wants a job that never makes him wake up early. His real goal, though, is to get away from a place where he feels that most of his peers are “beyond help.” He says the answer will be some sort of job.
“That actually does exist out there,” he said. “I’d like to find it.”
When Katherine Newman went to study teenaged employees of fast food restaurants in Harlem, she expected to profile kids who were forced to choose between work and school.
But "school and work weren't antithetical to one another," said Newman, whose book No Shame in My Game documents her findings. "Young people who were working were doing better in school than the young people who weren’t, because the discipline that they learned on the job and the oversight the business owners and mangers exercised over them was having a positive effect on their school performance."
The benefits of working while in high school extend beyond graduation, according to Andy Sum of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
“Your earnings in your mid 20s are very much influenced by how much work you did all the way from the time you were 16,” he said. “The effects are even stronger for kids who don’t go on to a four year college.”
For many teenagers, though, the problem is finding a job. In recent years the percentage of teenagers who are working has dropped to a 50-year low. Teenagers in big cities are more likely to have to compete with older workers or immigrants who, to employers, seem like more stable prospects. The prospects are the worst for teenagers from low-income families, who have access to only the weakest labor markets.
The stakes are quite high, said Mark Levitan of the Community Service Society, author of a report on the 170,000 "disconnected youth", 6 to 24 year old New Yorkers who are no longer in school but have not found jobs.
Since its inception as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, the Summer Youth Employment Program has been seen as a way to help teenagers find jobs, acknowledging that many would be unable to do so on their own. In New York, the city signs contracts with agencies that locate employment opportunities for participating teenagers. Most jobs are with non-profit groups, but there are also opportunities with government agencies or with private employers. The program pays participants the minimum wage with public money, and guarantees them employment. The employers get free labor, and 42,000 teenagers get jobs.
Montefiore Community Center in the Bronx is one of the biggest agencies in the program, placing 2,100 kids with various employers. Participants work with hospitals, local retailers, and other employers. They also serve as counselors at after school programs for younger children enrolled in summer school that would be unavailable otherwise and staff the community center itself.
“Their help is definitely needed,” said Debra Fort, who supervises 50 summer youth employees who serve meals to senior citizens, help with maintenance work, and generally assist those running the community center in the northern Bronx.
Fort acknowledges that not all of the kids she supervises are learning skills that could be applied directly to another job. But they are, she said, learning about the world of work. For many, this is their first experience at a place with a dress code – the center is full of kids wearing bright white Summer Youth Employment Program t-shirts – and the first time they have to show up to a job site each day. Fort also teaches them how to fill out resumes and applications.
Some critics have questioned the value of such programs, though. Summer jobs programs have been described as simply creating “make-work” positions that won't serve to transition kids into regular jobs as they get older. This was the rationale given when the federal government essentially stopped funding summer programs as part of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, favoring year round programs that it believed would be more effective – but would serve fewer kids – instead.
In the first year the law was in place, federal funding for New York’s program fell from $44 million to $15 million, forcing the city to eliminate almost 10,000 jobs. It now gets about $5 million. Other places, faced with the loss of federal funding, began to scale back their summer jobs program – or eliminate them entirely. But New York officials tried to protect the program from cuts, while also continuing to address concerns about the value of the jobs themselves.
Backers of the program do say that make-work jobs are a concern, but also argue that many menial-seeming jobs often give teenagers experiences that help them move towards more fulfilling work later in life.
There has never been a study of how participants of the program fare over the long-term, but many of its strongest advocates had their first experience with the program as participants. Commissioner Mullgrav worked at the Arsenal in Central Park when she was a teenager, and four of six members of the council’s youth services committee also participated in the program, including its chair, Lew Fidler. When advocates traveled to Albany for a lobbying day, former participant Andre Harrell, the former CEO of Motown records, went along.
Since the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development took over the program in 2003, it has added an educational component to the jobs program, ensuring that every participant receives lessons on how taxes work, how resumes are written, and other such skills throughout the summer.
The city has also tried to place teenagers in jobs where they will be able to build connections that might land them regular jobs. The proportion of summer jobs in the private sector has increased from 10 percent in 2004 to 18 percent now. Some employers, including JP Morgan Chase and the Staten Island Yankees, have opted to keep participants to stay on beyond the end of the program in late August. Some employers, like the Door, a community center in lower Manhattan, have created career placement centers, which moves kids that work on its radio programs in the summer into internships with media companies in the fall, or landing teenagers who work in the kitchen jobs at fancy restaurants.
This year, the city also created a program called CAPITAL, where private companies agree to hire participants recommended by agencies who have already worked with them. The companies pay the salaries of CAPITAL participants themselves. – giving a small amount of relief to a program that has long been faced with having more people who want to participate than money it has to pay them.
With the city and state committed to continuing to provide summer jobs, there is little debate over the value of its program – the issue going forward has to do with its price.
In order to continue the program at its current levels, city and state officials have been left to fill a large gap left by the federal government. In 1999, Washington provided 80 percent of the funding; city tax dollars now make up more than half of the program’s budget. Meanwhile, the cost of each job is rising with the minimum wage.
New York has almost tripled the amount of money it puts into the summer jobs program, from $10 million in 1999 to $27 million today. But while it has been given a steadily larger allotment of city tax dollars, the program has also been subjected to the vagaries of the “budget dance,” where the mayor proposes cutting programs in order to have bargaining chips in budget negotiations with the City Council. Because planning for the jobs program starts before the budget is settled, this practice has proved burdensome for those running it.
Last year, though, Mayor Michael Bloomberg provided the program with over $17 million in permanent funding – a process called baselining. This year, the city added another $9 million, bringing the total to about $26 million. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has made ending the budget dance a major issue, counted the additional baselining as one of her primary budget victories.
Agencies that work with the city agree that the permanent funding is a significant achievement.
“It’s very hard for a contactor to organize when they’re not really sure about the numbers,” said Bob Altman of the Montefiore Community Center. “This way, now we know that a lot of the money will be there, so we can plan ahead.”
In Albany, however, the program is still regularly excluded from the governor’s budget, only to be restored by the legislature. While funding has been restored each year, the dance can prove harmful. In 2004 the budget was passed so late that money that had been approved couldn’t be used, costing $6 million and some 3,00 0 jobs.
Advocates and city officials hope that the new governor will bring reform – and stability.
“Any time you have programs which are in part funded by the city and in part funded by the state or the feds, it’s a tenuous situation,” said Speaker Quinn on a recent visit to a summer job work site. “I think we’re certainly going to be seeing changes in how things happen in Albany come next year, and I anticipate that those will be extraordinarily helpful.”
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The city's new adopted budget, which took effect July 1st, is comfortably balanced, according to the latest reports by several fiscal monitors, who see little fear that the budget will become unbalanced during this fiscal year. The general tone of these reports is positive and complimentary, though they do see some large problems further down the road, and they make several important suggestions about what needs to be done.
But the city budget never sleeps. It is a 12-month process and the key budget makers - the mayor's policy and budget staff - tinker every day. Sometimes they do much more. In the first few weeks of the new fiscal year they have made two big moves with unknown implications for the city's future financial condition. The mayor and his economic advisers want to spend at least $500 million to buy the development rights of the MTA's West Side rail yards. More significantly for the long term, they are about to offer $650 million of tax breaks for developers who take on the Hudson Yards development project.
Reports from several fiscal monitors - the city comptroller's and the deputy state comptroller's and the state financial control board's - all say New York City's final budget for fiscal year 2007 improves the city's financial condition. Both the city and the deputy state comptroller's reports, for instance, like the retiree health benefits trust fund (which I've written about previously, with less enthusiasm.) The deputy state comptroller report approves of the increase in city reserve funds and the promise of pay-as-you-go capital funding (paying cash and thus avoiding interest costs from borrowing). The city comptroller singles out the hiring of 400 civilians in the police department to do jobs currently filled by higher-paid uniformed officers,
On the other hand, the reports aren't so optimistic for the longer term. There are the large budget deficits - the Bloomberg administration has projected $3.8 billion in 2008 and $4.6 billion in 2009, but the fiscal monitors think those numbers are low.
The state financial control board worries about a rapidly increasing capital budget: the city will enter into an "unprecedented" $12.5 billion of capital contracts in 2007 alone, and in just one year, from 2006 to 2007, debt service on city capital debt will grow by $743 million, or 18.1 percent, to reach $4.8 billion.
The control board also worries about the city's apparent failure to fund $2.5 billion of capital repairs identified by its own annual maintenance report. Such delayed maintenance creates unnecessary costs.
Other important suggestions come from the city comptroller's report, many of them about the way the city handles its contracts.
Bouncing back from last year's attempt to get the Jets a football stadium on land owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the mayor announced in early July that he wants to buy development rights to that same MTA site for $300 million -- the west rail yards leading into Penn Station -- and the air rights over the adjoining east yards for $200 million.
Such a purchase makes a lot of sense in terms of linking the sites to the larger Hudson Yards project (which covers, roughly, the West Side from Seventh to Twelfth Avenues between West 30th Street and West 42nd Street). The city would build a platform over the west rail yards as an initial step in developing the site; the city would sell the development air rights from the east rail yards to developers within the Hudson Yards project.
A second mayoral move in July regarding the Hudson Yards project is much more problematic. The city is authorizing across-the-board tax cuts for developers in the project area. This plan is intended to raise enough revenue, over time, to pay for the $3 billion in bonds that will be issued shortly to pay for the extension of the number 7 subway line to the Hudson Yards project area, new roadways, the purchase of the east rail yard air rights, and other infrastructure elements.
The city released the 19-page plan on Friday, July 28, and held a hearing on the plan, conducted by an arm of the mayor's Economic Development Corporation, entitled the Industrial Development Agency (a city financing agency controlled by the mayor), a few days later. The plan is oddly defensive in its introduction, noting that "development of Hudson Yards is not a foregone conclusion."
Not only does the project require rezoning (done) and the construction of the 7 line extension, but it requires "financial incentives…to make commercial development in this pioneering area feasible, particularly in the short run as the district matures."
The plan includes several kinds of tax breaks, but the heart of the proposal is the property tax breaks, through use of PILOTs, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (Building Stadiums, Losing Revenue). The developers would pay these PILOTs, not to the city, but to the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corporation. The corporation would use the payments to pay the debt service on the $3 billion of bonds it will issue. (The process is similar to the PILOTs that the Yankees and Mets will pay to another financing authority - instead of the city - to pay the debt service on their stadium construction bonds.)
The big question has always been: How big a discount on their property taxes would the developers in Hudson Yards be guaranteed? The Industrial Development Agency has a complicated answer. It depends on where and when construction takes place. Put simply, developers in areas of the Hudson Yards more to the east get smaller deals than those building to the west that presumably need a bigger incentive. Early developers get a better deal than later developers.
All these PILOT incentives add up to a $650 million cost (net present value) to the city over 30 years. The PILOT revenues would be approximately $1.8 billion during the same period. The overall Hudson Yards project, as projected in an earlier environmental impact statement for the whole project area, is expected to create 225,000 permanent jobs and $17.2 billion in private investment during the 30 years.
In testimony before the Industrial Development Agency on August 3, James Parrott, deputy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute and former chief economist for economic development for the city, said, "In my belief, the IDA does not make a compelling case that there is an economic rationale for across-the-board tax breaks that are needed to spur commercial development in the Hudson Yards area." He suggested that no recent market analysis has been presented to prove the need for committing significant tax breaks so well in advance of actual development.
Parrott said that what is really driving the Industrial Development Agency plan is not an inducement rationale for development, but a financing need: "I think this represents a perversion of the IDA purpose and authority. The city wants to move forward now with the off-budget financing for infrastructure improvements in the Hudson Yards area and is counting on a substantial amount of PILOT payments to secure that borrowing."
The proposal has one other interesting section: it describes the new city "development corporations" that will carry out the $3 billion Hudson Yards financing and development implementation. Both entities move decisions that will affect the city's future financial condition out of the normal budgeting process into less democratic institutions dominated by the mayor.
The Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corporation, for instance -- with five members: the mayor's budget director, two deputy mayors, the city comptroller and council speaker -- will approve and then carry out the financing. It is staffed by the mayor's budget office. The Hudson Yards Development Corporation, which will oversee the development itself, has 13 members, including the city comptroller and the council speaker, but is dominated by the mayor with eight seats.
One can support the general idea of developing the underutilized West Side of midtown and yet wonder why a financing plan needs to depend on thirty years of up-front, across-the-board property tax, sales tax, and other tax breaks. And wonder why the decision is being made in the middle of the summer, with only one public hearing and minimal public participation.
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.Â
The New York City budget for fiscal year 2007, which began July 1, is a remarkable document on several fronts. It makes creative use of the huge $5.5 billion surplus from fiscal year 2006. Its highlights have won approval from most fiscal monitors. And it garnered praise from the press, which loved the unusually cordial budget negotiations between the new City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The New York Observer called Quinn "the perfect partner" for the mayor and their work together a "class act."
From a policy and process perspective, however, the adopted budget is less remarkable and more familiar. Once again the council allocated tens of millions of dollars for discretionary grants - so-called "member items," or "pork." (See related article.) More broadly, the adopted budget shows little progress toward a long-term structurally balanced financial plan. While the budget may "strengthen [the city's] financial position," as one fiscal monitor phrased it, the picture for future years remains cloudy. In fact, the plan projects deficits averaging $3.8 billion from 2008 to 2010.
Overall city agency spending remains essentially flat over the next four years, and the $52.9 billion budget for 2007 provides few new programs.
For example, the commitment to alleviating poverty announced in the mayor's January state of the city speechis backed up with little, if any, budget component. A private-public task force is meeting to prepare a plan, and the mayor has promised three pilot programs in high-need communities.
According to the Independent Budget Office's reporton the executive budget, social services other than Medicaid are slated to receive an average annual cut of 2.5 percent from 2006 to 2010. During the same period, Medicaid spending will increase an average of 4.0 percent a year, and children's services by 2.2 percent. But over four years, total health and social service spending, according to the executive budget, will increase by just one-tenth of one percent per year.
Similarly, the budget offers no major tax relief. It renews last year's $400 property tax rebate, but that goes to homeowners only, ignoring renters who pay a substantial part of a landlord's property tax through their rent. There is no move toward broader property tax reform.
The one big agency initiative is the hiring of 800 new cops and the transfer of 400 officers from civilian to uniformed jobs, a move many welcome as a sound management reform. Quinn added $10 million to the police department budget to provide bulletproof vests for officers.
In his report, the state deputy comptroller for New York City discussed how the mayor's Office of Management and Budget used the $5.5 billion surplus in 2006. The fund to provide health insurance for city retirees got $1 billion in the 2006 budget and will get $1 billion more in the 2007 budget. The Health and Hospitals Corporation received $385 million in 2006, which in a complicated exchange between the corporation and the city means the city will get back the money in future years, reducing deficits in those years.
The city placed in escrow $350 million it will owe the Transitional Finance Authority in 2008 for debt service on capital projects. This produced $16 million of interest in 2007 and will reduce debt service expenses in 2008 by that same $350 million.
Another $354 million of the surplus will go to pay 2006 and 2007 expenses that would otherwise be covered by money from the nationwide tobacco settlement. The delayed tobacco settlement revenues will then be available in 2008, reducing the projected deficit for that year.
These esoteric fiscal moves make for an interesting patchwork of budget-balancing that helps deal with fiscal problems over a one- or two-year period. They do little, though, to better match revenues and expenditures in the years beyond that.
In fact, according to the state deputy comptroller's report, the 2007 budget features its own "operating deficit" because the 2006 surplus paid billions in what would otherwise have been 2007 expenses. Without these prepayments, actual spending in 2007 would have exceeded revenues by $2.3 billion.
Fiscal analysts and monitors disagree about the scale of future budget deficits. The executive budget projected deficits from 2008 to 2010 of $3.6 billion, $4.2 billion, and $3.6 billion, respectively. The state deputy comptroller projected lower deficits: $3.1 billion, $3.8 billion, and $3.2 billion. And the Independent Budget Office was even more optimistic. In May it suggested figures for 2008 to 2010 of $2.5 billion, $2.9 billion and $2.6 billion - about $1 billion a year less than the city's figures.
There are some big uncertainties. The IBO, for example, noted that giving city workers wages increases to keep pace inflation would add $1 billion 2010 deficit. And the estimates do not include any contribution the city might have to make to a settlement in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity caseon school funding.
Although Quinnhas said she wants the council to become a more active participant in the budget process, the mayor continues to dominate key decisions.
Quinn has highlighted the cordial negotiations with the mayor and pointed to the council's success in setting a baseline for funding three programs of special interest to council members: extra library hours, 7,000 summer jobs for teenagers, and more frequent trash pick-ups in the outer boroughs.
But as worthy as these programs might be, the $50 million or so they represent is only a fraction of the council-backed programs that the mayor annually cuts.
The city's Office of Management Budget considers these programs one-year efforts, instead of part of a four-year plan. As a result, every year the council and mayor engage in a "budget dance": The mayor makes cuts in the programs, and council seeks to restore those cuts. This year's restorations, totaling about $233 million, do not look much different from those of previous earlier years, despite the $5.5 billion surplus.
Although the budget does include the money wanted for the bulletproof vests, the council did not get much of what it asked for. It requested $45 million for full-day universal pre-kindergarten, but instead got 2,000 more spaces - at a cost of $7 million. A $7.5 million request for child advocacy centers became a $2 million program.
By moving money some of the surplus into the health fund, the mayor, according to the IBO, removed that money from the give and take of the budget process. This apparently did not bother Quinn: The fund, she said, demonstrates "sound fiscal responsibility in planning for future health care obligations." This may be true, but it does give the mayor more control over the budget.
Quinn faces a daunting task if she hopes to give the council a great role in formulating the budget. She has far fewer resources and less staff than the mayor, whose budget office has decades of experience. This year with the previous speaker forced out by term limits, the speaker and the council's new finance division director did not assume their posts until after the OMB essentially completed the January preliminary budget. This may have weakened the council's budget role.
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.Â
With the baseball season about a third over, New York fans can begin dreaming once again of a subway series. Certainly they have a lot to cheer about, with the Mets leading their division by several games and the Yankees neck and neck with their traditional rival, the Boston Red Sox.
Many fans (particularly those who frequent Shea Stadium) may also be applauding the new stadiums planned for both teams. But some of the financing arrangements for the new stadiums raise important questions.
One issue concerns the city’s recent reliance on so-called PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes) to promote economic development projects such as the stadiums. The use of these payments raises questions about overall revenue projections for the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s bold but curious priorities, and his ad hoc, unilateral style of executive budgeting. Further, the deals the city crafted to help the Mets and Yankees build new stadiums may be a model for the future, since PILOTs have been proposed as key to the city’s financing of West Side development.
The mayor certainly has the power to negotiate PILOTs with private developers and other property owners. But since such payments can cause the city to gain or lose hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax revenues, critics believe the process needs a lot more discussion and transparency than it has yet received.
A payment-in-lieu-of-taxes is, at one level, a simple concept. To encourage economic development, the city agrees to accept a negotiated payment instead of the standard property tax. These payments are generally less than what the property's full value would normally dictate. The difference in payment -– the lost revenue to the city –- is technically called a “tax expenditure,” but most people would consider it a tax break.
Stadium financing in general -- and PILOTs in particular -- can be quite complex. Take the deals with the Yankees and Mets approved by the City Council in April. Although the teams will build the stadiums themselves, the taxpayers will pay for related items, such as parking lots and, at Yankee Stadium, new parks. According to the mayor, the city and state will spend about $235 million for the Yankees’ project and $180 million for the Mets’ stadium.
But the bill gets bigger when one adds in lost revenues. Up to now, the city owned the baseball stadiums and the land under them. The teams did not pay property taxes but did pay rent to the city. Good Jobs New York has said the Yankees rent totaled $26.43 million between 2000 and 2004, and the Mets paid $24.55 million in rent to the city over the same period. Admittedly much, though not all, of that was eaten up by maintenance costs, which the city paid under the old arrangement but will not have to pay under the new one. But now there will be no rent at all.
And there will not be a property tax either. While the mayor has objected strenuously to Madison Square Garden’s property tax exemption (which costs the city $12 million a year in lost revenues), the baseball teams also remain exempt from the property tax. The Yankees will therefore save -- and the city will lose in revenue -- $144 million over 40 years. The Mets will save $72 million. Such a major revenue decision deserved more debate than it got.
In addition, the Bloomberg administration's interpretation of federal law has led them to assert that the Yankees and Mets can use tax-exempt bonds to finance the building of the stadiums -- as long as they repay the bonds with PILOTS. Tax exempt bonds carry lower interest rates. And so qualifying for tax-exempt financing could save both teams a total of $216 million by one estimate, quoted in an explanation of this financing by Neil deMause in the Village Voice. For both teams, the Independent Budget Office has said the ability to use tax-exempt financing is the biggest single benefit in their stadium financing packages. Most of this cost, though, will be borne by the federal government, not the city or state.
But federal officials have yet to approve this tax-exempt financing. The IBO has told the City Council that allowing tax exempt financing “relies on an aggressive interpretation” of the federal internal revenue code. But it became clear at a City Council hearing this spring that, even if the federal government rejects the city’s argument -- which would require the Yankees and Mets to resort to more costly taxable financing -- the stadiums would nevertheless retain their property tax exemption.
Some see the stakes in these stadium deals dwarfed by those in the forthcoming West Side financing. The potential savings through the use of PILOTS to private developers –- and revenue losses to the city –- are vastly higher given the scope of that project’s residential and commercial goals.
As discussed in earlier columns , the city has proposed using an upfront, across-the-board PILOT for West Side developers, promising them they can pay some percentage (50 percent? 90 percent?) of their property tax bill.
A useful reference point here is the biggest PILOT deal in town -- the Battery Park City Authority. The authority has a 99-year lease on land owned by the city, and, as a state-authorized public authority, has the power to collect PILOTs from all commercial and residential owners in Battery Park City. These PILOTs are the equivalent of full property taxes that would otherwise be paid to the city. The city assesses all the Battery Park properties at full market value and the authority bills the owners for what they would owe.
The authority thus has a guaranteed revenue stream, which reached nearly $180 million in 2005, according to the city finance department. The authority uses the money primarily to pay the debt service on bonds that it has issued to pay for developing Battery Park’s infrastructure. After additional administrative and other costs have been paid, the authority sends the bulk of the surplus revenues to the city.
This annual payment to the city, which, rather disingenuously, is also called a PILOT -- but is a partial payment -- can vary substantially from year to year, depending on what the authority spends and saves in a given year. For instance, according to city tax expenditure reports, the PILOT from the authority to the city was $52 million in fiscal 2003 and $101 million in 2005.
The big difference between the Battery Park City Authority financing model and the proposed West Side model is that all Battery Park property owners pay full property taxes after certain time-limited abatements. And paying full freight has not slowed the enormous success of Battery Park City, even after the 9/11 attack.
Why then, based on the downtown record, would one structure West Side financing with a PILOT that is a fraction of full value?
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.Â
The executive budget that Mayor Michael Bloomberg released this month shows a $3.4 billion surplus for the current fiscal year (which ends on June 30th). The real surplus is $5.2 billion; the mayor has already moved the rest off-budget in various ways for future use.
This is just one example of the mayor's ever-expanding domination of the budget process. Another example was his success with the stadium financing deal that the city council approved almost unanimously in April.The council, the city’s countervailing budget power, has been unusually accommodating in its responses to the mayor's initiatives.
But the council has very little to show for its cooperation. The executive budget, according to the New York Times, retains some $338 million in cuts to council-supported programs –- part of the so-called budget dance that keeps the council at bay.
The one new council suggestion that the mayor adopted, $12 million for police vests, is insignificant in a $53 billion budget. And the council request for a more transparent, more detailed budget presentation has translated into the weak promise of a pilot project in two agencies, one of which, the Department of Small Business Services, is among the city’s smallest agencies ($51 million in city funding).
The City Council has already approved the mayor's plan to take $1.8 billion of this year's surplus off the table:
The remaining $3.4 billion surplus (which may in fact rise further in the several weeks left in this fiscal year) will be "rolled over" into 2007 by pre-paying certain expenses in 2006, such as debt service that would be otherwise due in 2007.
The mayor has seemingly given up on additional federal aid. He has a long menu of requests from Washington -- $920 million worth, mostly for additional education aid – but he assumes only $50 million of new aid in the new budget plan.
As usual with Bloomberg budgets, there is very little mayoral text accompanying the budget documents. The general tone of the minimal prose remains cautious: Non-discretionary spending (pensions, health benefits, Medicaid, debt service) goes up 12.9 percent next year, but agency spending goes up only 1.8 percent. Budget deficits in later years remain high, averaging $3.8 billion from 2008 to 2010. (The fiscal monitors will review these numbers in the next few weeks.)
Thus, despite two years of enormous surpluses, there is surprisingly little discussion of alternatives to the mayor's choices. As the City Council moves to adopt the budget next month, the floor seems set for a re-staging of last year's budget dance -- the restoration of some $300 million that the mayor cut in council programs, and perhaps a few additional council initiatives. But in some ways the budget battle has already been won by the mayor.
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.Â
New York City’s official unemployment rate was 5.4 percent as of last month . Although that is the lowest rate for any March since 2001, the city’s rate is still higher than the state and national average of 4.7 percent. This number translates into 209,000 unemployed city residents.
Unemployment is difficult to measure, as is insufficient employment. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, 375,000 city residents are either unemployed or underemployed (meaning they work part time rather than full time), and 860,000 New Yorkers work at poverty level wages.
Several city agencies provide services to New Yorkers seeking jobs – and all could be helped with an increase in technological services.
That was the message of two New York City Council members, Gale Brewer (who is chair of the technology committee of the council) and David Yassky (chair of the Committee on Small Business) at a recent hearing. Brewer will soon introduce legislation to offer technological enhancements to the city’s Workforce 1 facilities, where city residents can learn about employment programs available at the federal, state, and local level. Every borough houses at least one of these "one-stop" centers. All city residents can visit the centers, including people with well-paying jobs who desire to improve their skills, but the target populations are unemployed city residents and people with low-wage jobs who desire stable and/or better-paying work.
New York City’s Department of Small Business Services operates the Workforce 1 centers, which share quarters with NYC Business Solutions Centers. These seek to provide businesses with a skilled labor force. This direct interface between job seekers and employers began in July 2003.
The level of computer training varies between Workforce 1 centers, and is sometimes extensive. For example, the Brooklyn location offers (in pdf format) computer skills assessments and a wide range of courses about Microsoft Office programs . The Department of Small Business Services has forged successful partnerships with technology companies as well. Last year IBM donated special software that makes job searching easier for elderly city residents, and residents with limited English proficiency, who attend a Workforce 1 center.
The centers are typically open only during business hours, which limits the ability of people with low-paying jobs to avail themselves of their services. From March 2005 to March 2006, every Workforce 1 facility combined served 81,300 city residents, which is a large number considering how few centers there are.
Brewer and others suggest several technological upgrades to make these centers more useful, such as creating a centralized Web site for all city job seekers. Another idea would be to tap into the New York State Department of Labor’s database of unemployed residents throughout the state, which includes a description of their skills and work history. The city’s Workforce 1 facilities do not currently have access to this database. With this information, facility workers would be able to match job seekers with appropriate employers more easily.
Another improvement would be personalized online job-seeking and resume-building tools, accessible with an ID and password. The State Department of Labor already provides such tools, and the city’s Department of Small Business Services is investigating how to establish them. The benefit of this approach is greater autonomy over the job-seeking process. One challenge in impoverished city neighborhoods will be establishing a level of Internet connectivity that would make this service useful.
Even if all of these ideas come to fruition, the likelihood is that city residents on public assistance will not receive as much benefit as others. As the Gazette has documented, the Workforce 1 centers typically serve city residents who are not on public assistance. Thus, despite the City Council’s desire to increase assistance to everyone seeking employment, upgrades to Workforce 1 services are likely to help some city residents more than others.
Federal job assistance funding priorities are a significant reason for the increased attention to Workforce 1 facilities; to some extent, this budgetary reality renders concerns about equity moot. In an analysis of the Bush administration’s 2006 budget proposals, the National Employment Law Project observes national momentum toward making Workforce 1-type facilities “the preferred delivery mode for a growing range of public services”. Hopefully the Workforce 1 facilities will soon offer an increased range of services, which will serve as a model of technological support for all city job seekers.
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Several new reports suggest that city budget news is not only good for the short term, but perhaps for the longer term as well. This year’s budget surplus –- well in excess of $4 billion –- makes for an easily balanced budget next year, and new economic and fiscal projections for subsequent years show lower budget deficits and some slowing of allegedly “uncontrollable” costs such as Medicaid and pensions. The result is that the city is closer to a structurally balanced budget than it has been in several years.
The mayor’s response to the good news is to control spending in the short run. He has expanded his own extraordinary budgetary powers by an unusually large mid-year budget modification, with minimal council and no public debate. The April 5 modification approved by the city council captures much of this year’s big surplus, parking $1 billion (nearly equivalent to the sanitation department’s total budget!) into a health retirees fund that – as one fiscal monitor observed – takes money “off the table” before the council can offer ideas about what to do with it.
The immediate result of this April modification and the city council’s own very modest proposals for next year will be little or no change in discretionary spending for next year. The mayor’s reluctance to review the huge tax cuts that will in 2007 be fully phased in – some $1.2 billion in cuts, with the largest benefits going to high-earning households – means that he will pursue budget balancing only by cutting spending.
The April 5 budget modification – approved in the shadow of the Yankee Stadium deal – obscures the extent of this year’s huge budget surplus. Various recent reports give different estimates of what this budget will wind up being:
State Comptroller’s Report -- $5 billion
State Financial Control Board -- $4.8 billion
City Comptroller -- $4.3 billion
Independent Budget Office-- $4.1 billion
All of these are above last year’s $3.5 billion.
The IBO report explains that the surplus stems from three basic sources:
1. Increased Revenue. There is $2.8 billion more in tax revenues than the $29.6 billion projected in June, primarily from income taxes and property transfer taxes. (This means that the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget underestimated city tax revenues by nearly ten percent in 2005 when this year’s budget was adopted.)
2. One-time Savings. There is $1.4 billion in one-time savings from accounting and actuarial changes in pension-fund contributions and Medicaid.
3. Delays In Payments. Some $200 million in payments are due from a tobacco-settlement fund.
The April modification – which also includes an unexpected payment of $575 million to the Health and Hospitals Corporation -- in effect spends down this year’s projected surplus, so that the actual end-of-fiscal-year (June) surplus will be much less than would otherwise be the case. As of April (and subject to further changes before June), the new surplus is projected by the IBO to be $3.1 billion. The IBO explains the rationale for the spending-down process:
“[T]he Bloomberg Administration has sought to take money â€off the table’ through steps such as the creation of the retiree health insurance trust fund and the deferral of tobacco revenues. These are steps that manage the use of surplus prudently and can help to reduce the burden of rising health insurance costs or cyclical declines in the local economy in future years.”
The report goes on to say, “But these are not the only means for achieving those goals. For example, using more of the surplus for pay-as-you-go capital would not commit the city to recurring expenditures.” I have pointed out in past articles (such as Tax Reform In Bloomberg’s Second Term? And The Mayor’s Underwhelming Budget for 2007) that there are other prudent means available to address long-term budget stability. The elimination of the top two rates of the city ’s personal income tax took well over $500 million a year “off the table” ($541 million in fiscal 2005, says the IBO). And the homeowner property tax rebate will cost the city another $256 million in lost revenues. (Sales tax cuts, which primarily benefit lower-earning households, total about $400 million.)
Two of the recent reports question the transparency of the new $1 billion fund (projected to get another $1 billion in 2007). The city comptroller report suggests that if the mayor uses the health fund as a “rainy day fund” – drawing down from it in times of fiscal stress – “it would raise concerns about transparency” because “a portion of the city’s true obligations would be moved â€off-budget.’” The business-supported Citizens Budget Commission’s March 22 report (The Analysis of Mayor's January Financial Plan) gives “strong support” to the new fund. But the CBC, too, has several reservations about the fund.
The CBC worries that fund money could be used for other than stated fund purposes, that transparency and accountability will be clouded by its off-budget structure, and that payments into the fund will not continue after 2007. (The CBC goes on to urge the mayor to pursue other ways to deal with budget surpluses, including creation of a real rainy day fund.)
A day after the council’s acceptance of the budget modification, Speaker Christine Quinn released the council’s formal response to the mayor’s preliminary budget . If the mayor intended with his new fund to take money off the table to restrict spending, he certainly succeeded. Quinn’s plan would add only $84.5 million in new programs and $154 million in tax credits to the mayor’s $53 billion budget.
Speaker Quinn’s plan, like her predecessors’, also restores the cuts made by the mayor to current programs established by the Council ($338 million this time) – cuts that every year have been mostly restored after what the speaker calls a “dance” between the mayor and council. Council-proposed cuts and higher revenue estimates would pay for these restorations and the new programs.
Given the questions about transparency and accountability with the $2 billion in transfers to the new health fund, it is a bit ironic that the speaker suggests that she and the mayor have now agreed to pursue transparency in the budget together and “reform the budget process once and for all and put an end to the annual dance”
The monitors’ reports allude to several promising trends for longer-term budget balance. For the fiscal years 2008 through 2010, for example, the Independent Budget Office projects deficits approximately $1 billion lower than the city projects. In 2010 the IBO estimates the deficit will be down to $1.7 billion, far below out-year deficit projections over the past several years.
The mayor’s preliminary budget devotes several pages to the fact that “non-controllable” (non-discretionary) spending is increasing much faster than “controllable” (discretionary). Discretionary spending in almost all service areas from education to police is essentially flat or near-flat for the next four years.
But the monitors note some improvements in controlling the non-controllable areas. For instance, the recent state cap on city Medicaid costs means a slowing of growth in one major non-discretionary spending area. In another “uncontrollable” area the city comptroller says, “Pension cost increases are expected to abate over the [the next four years] and costs will remain at a level comparable to that reached in the mid-1980s, when considered as a percentage of general fund revenues.”
But health care and other fringe benefits for the city workforce will continue to climb, from $5.5 billion in 2006 to $6.7 billion in 2010, according to the IBO. The mayor has indicated he wants future employees to contribute to their health insurance costs, a major cost-cutting proposal in the CBC report, but no big change seems imminent in this area.
The other big non-discretionary area – debt service on the city’s capital budget – is the fastest growing part of the budget, rising 10 percent a year over the next four years, to $6.2 billion in 2010. However, the IBO’s new report on the affordability of the debt (in pdf format) that finances the city’s ambitious 10-year, $62.4 billion capital plan suggests that there is “a generally positive outlook for the city’s debt affordability given the financing plan for the current” capital plan.
The study concludes, however, that growth in the non-discretionary areas will continue as a percentage of the whole budget and is projected to reach nearly half of city-funded spending by 2010. That means that future recessions “will put pressure on operational spending.”
All these reports add up to a unique opportunity for the mayor and council to design a longer-term budget plan and process that does away with the annual budget-negotiation angst and lack of transparency. The current cooperation between the mayor and council speaker could be a useful first step. However, the mayoral domination of the huge April budget modification and the obfuscation surrounding OMB’s new health fund suggest the council has a lot of work to do to catch up.
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.Â
As a regular feature, Searchlight on City Hall looks at some of the new bills in the New York City Council. At the most recent meeting on April 5, 2006, council members introduced 15 new bills, many of which may never be passed into a law. Still individual council members hope their bills will at least generate public discussion - and result in some action - on the issues that concern them.
REVISITING STREET ELECTROCUTIONS
In 2004, a woman named Jody Lane was electrocuted when she stepped on a manhole cover while walking her dog in the East Village. In response, the City Council passed Local Law 44, which requires Con Edison to conduct routine inspections of wires and electrical infrastructure and make repairs within 24 hours. In addition, the Department of Transportation instituted random tests of electrical boxes and manhole covers on the city’s streets and sidewalks.
However, the legislation has not solved the problem. In recent months, more people and dogs have been shocked by stray voltage and others have been injured by exploding manhole covers. So the City Council is introducing another bill - known as the "Street Utilities Safety Act" (Intro 252) - in an effort to address the issue.
It would institute new requirements that companies maintain electrical-related covers to ensure that pedestrians are not exposed to stray voltage. It would also impose new penalties of $1,000 to $5,000 for companies whose electrical infrastructure is found to be dangerous.
IMMIGRANT VOTING RIGHTS
While the City Council has no official role in the immigration debate going on in Washington, some city lawmakers are trying to weigh in on the subject at the local level.
Councilmember Charles Barron has introduced a bill (Intro 245) that would give non-citizen immigrants the right to vote in local elections. The bill would apply to immigrants who have applied for citizenship, have "green cards," and have lived in New York for at least six months.
"From 1770 to 1920 immigrants were allowed to vote and when the complexion of immigrants changed, then the rules changed," said Barron.
According to the Department of City Planning, the city is home to 1.3 million non-citizens of voting age. While non-citizens pay taxes and are subject to other city laws, they are not allowed to choose their local elected officials. New York has a history of allowing non-citizens to vote on local issues: before the Board of Education was disbanded, non-citizen immigrants could vote in school board elections.
The bill, however, is not likely to become law any time soon.
Speaker Christine Quinn, who controls much of the council's legislative agenda and can effectively decide if a bill ever comes up for a vote, is opposed to the measure.
"I am not in favor of non-citizen voting," Quinn said at a press conference when asked about the measure.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that giving non-citizen immigrants the right to vote in local elections would require a change in the State Constitution and would have to be passed by voter referendum.
HOSPITAL CLOSURES
Many hospitals in New York are struggling financially, and as a result, some are shutting their doors. Last year, for example, two hospitals in Brooklyn - St. Mary's and the Caledonian Division of Brooklyn Hospital in Flatbush - both closed.
As a result, Councilmember Letitia James has introduced a bill (Intro 251) that would require the department of health and the Economic Development Corporation to conduct a study on health care quality in neighborhoods that have lost hospitals.
The study would examine the "disparities in health care" received by city residents, as well as look into the impact of private hospital closures on publicly funded hospitals.
BANNING MILITARY RECRUITERS IN SCHOOLS
As the war in Iraq stretches on, military recruiters are struggling to find new applicants for military service. Councilmember Charles Barron, who is opposed to the war, wants to make it even more difficult. He has introduced a bill (Intro 246), which would prohibit military recruitment in New York City public schools and the City University of New York.
"Our black and Latino youth do not join the military for patriotic reasons," said Barron. "They go in for economic reasons to be cannon fodder for unjust wars. Let's opt the military out from our public schools."
Military recruiters target communities of color where students may see a military career as their best option, argues Barron.
Parents are often unaware that the under President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, schools must provide the military with names and addresses of all students, except for those who expressly request that their names be withheld from recruiting lists. The bill would also prohibit schools from providing information about students without the consent of a parent or guardian.
POSTAL STICKERS
When a postal delivery person is unable to deliver a package, they often leave a sticker on the door to notify the tenant. This practice is an invitation to criminals, argues Councilmember Simcha Felder.
"Anyone who is a thief knows that the best house to rob is one with a sticker on it [because no one is home]," said Felder.
In an effort to address the issue, Felder has introduced a bill (Intro 247) that would prevent mail delivery personnel from placing "notification stickers" on the front doors of residences where no one is home. The bill would require delivery people to notify residents in a more discreet manner, perhaps with a note in a mailbox.
Felder and several colleagues introduced an identical bill in 2003, but it was never granted a hearing by the council.
PAINTING APARTMENTS
According to city law, a landlord must repaint or re-wallpaper the walls and ceilings of an apartment at least once every three years. However, some tenants complain that this never happens or, if it does, the landlord does not give sufficient notice of when the painting will be scheduled.
To address the issue, Councilmember Miguel Martinez has introduced a bill (Intro 0254) that would require that landlords who wish to repaint an apartment must inform the tenant at least one month in advance.
Remarks delivered by Speaker Christine Quinn
Spring is in the air.
March Madness is over.
The Mets and Yankees are playing for keeps.
And the Knicks...well...not so much...
As we look at neighborhoods and communities across New York, one cannot help but feel optimistic about how far we’ve come and where we are headed as a city.
Crime is down to record lows. The unemployment rate is the lowest it's been since before 9/11 and more New Yorkers have jobs than ever before. We still have a long way to go, but our schools are getting better. On housing, we are beginning to deal with the crisis that affects so many across the economic spectrum. And we are budgeting wisely and responsibly for the future.
Now, the folks on the other side of City Hall certainly deserve a lot of credit for these gains. But so does every one of the fifty-one members of the City Council here today. We should be proud of how we've helped lead New York through difficult times - from recession and budget deficits to economic boom and record surpluses.
We are the People's House and we work hard everyday to meet our constituents' needs and concerns...in all five boroughs...in every community from Stapleton to Mott Haven. That's why, proud as we are of our achievements, we are not satisfied. Make no mistake, we have a lot more work to do.
For too many New Yorkers, the City is simply not affordable...Hard working, taxpaying, middle-class families are being squeezed out. The unemployment rate in many communities—especially among African-American and Latino men—remains unacceptably high. And the least fortunate among us worry every day about getting the basic necessities - food, shelter and health care.
President Kennedy said that the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. So now, while the sun is shining, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to make government better serve the people's needs.
We can - we must - make City Hall work even more effectively for our constituents. We can listen harder and make government smarter. We can expand programs that work and still demand accountability and results. We can end the dysfunctional budget practices of the past and begin real oversight of City finances. And, most importantly, we can learn from government's mistakes - and from tragedies - so that we do not repeat them.
Yes, we can be proud of achievements but we must not be satisfied.
That's why today in this speech and in the Council's formal budget response, we are outlining an ambitious, forward-looking agenda for kids, parents and seniors...to help businesses and to reform government...and to make all of us better Council Members for our constituents.
Full Day Pre-K
Study after study show how important it is for our kids to enter school ready to learn...that early childhood education is one of the most important factors in determining future success...it leads to higher math and reading scores and better school attendance - especially for children of low-income families.
In 1997, under the leadership of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, New York passed the New York State Universal Pre-Kindergarten Law with the goal of providing access to pre-k for every four-year-old.
Today, approximately 40,000 children are enrolled in the Department of Education's universal pre-k program. A vast majority of these, however, are only half-day programs. For many single-parent families, or for families in which both parents work, this half-day approach falls short.
To truly give young children the opportunities they deserve, we must offer as many four-year-olds as possible access to full-day pre-k.
Over the next three years, we propose making all half-day pre-k slots a full-day, at a cost $45 million a year.
Universal full-day pre-kindergarten is an attainable goal that will have a dramatic impact on the lives of our kids and assist our city's working families.
311 Education Hotline
To truly make all schools work, we must also increase parental involvement. Having parents play an active role in their children's education is key...and government must do everything it can to help them get involved and make it easy for them to get answers to critical questions.
How can my child transfer if they are unhappy with their school? What middle schools are in my neighborhood?
As council members, we hear from parents all the time...mothers and fathers who are looking for information that will affect their kid's futures.
This is one of the most crucial - and personally important - interactions between citizens and city government... and it is often one of the most frustrating.
Today, we propose adding $1 million to help 311 so we can hire education specialists who will be able to help parents get answers and navigate the education bureaucracy.
311 is a terrific program...But 311 operators are not currently trained to answer parents' detailed questions. We need to change that.
Feeding Hungry Children
To give every single New York City child a fair shot at success, however, we must make sure that every single New York City child has enough food to eat. In this City of real estate booms and Wall Street bonuses too many children go to bed hungry. And too many wake up hungry...And too many go from one day to the next not knowing where their next meal will come from.
In 2004, an estimated 1.2 million New Yorkers—including more than 400,000 children—lived in hunger or in households where having food was always in question. In this City of such extraordinary wealth that is simply unacceptable. We, the richest City in the world, must be able to feed our people.
The first step is to make it easier for eligible New Yorkers to enroll in the Food Stamp program.
Right now, 600,000 people in the City qualify for food stamps but don't get them. The Administration has worked hard to enroll more families but we are still leaving nearly $1 billion in federal aid on the table in Washington and not doing nearly enough to help hungry families put food on the table right here in New York.
So, today, we're setting a goal of reducing the number of hungry New Yorkers by more than half. Over the next four years, we'll work to enroll 350,000 people in food stamps who already qualify but aren't getting them. We're going to draw on some ideas from Council Member Eric Gioia and the Investigations Committee.
Let's allow people to apply for food stamps on-line, reduce the number of office visits, and get applications at every City funded food pantry and soup kitchen.
When parents sign their children up for free school meals we're going to make sure they know that they could qualify for food stamps, too, because the income requirements are exactly the same. We're going to let them know where and how they can apply. And we're going to do the same for Medicaid eligible New Yorkers whenever they walk into one of the city's public hospitals.
Office of Hunger and Nutrition
To help implement these initiatives, we're allocating funds for a new city Office of Hunger and Nutrition to coordinate anti-hunger efforts.
By working across agencies, this office will also find solutions to the high rates of obesity that are plaguing our City, in particular low-income communities and children. This Office will work to bring healthier foods to all New Yorkers-- through increasing the number of farmers' markets and making sure they can accept food stamps—and support programs that encourage physical activity for our children.
In the Bible, Luke tells us "to whom much is given, much is required." In this City..in this day...every New Yorker must have access to three square meals, seven days a week..We can make this a reality.
Reforming Children's Services
It is our solemn duty as lawmakers to analyze and correct government's mistakes, shortcomings and sins of omission. These too often lead to human tragedies like hungry children....or like the death of seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown.
Mayor Bloomberg, Council Member Helen Foster and General Welfare Chair Bill DeBlasio have recommended smart and thoughtful changes in training and in the way the City treats high-risk cases like this one.
Today, we are proposing three initiatives that will help the City move faster and more effectively against child abuse.
First, we propose increased funding for child abuse units in the five District Attorney's offices. More resources will mean more thorough investigations and more rigorous prosecutions, and that means fewer at-risk kids.
Second, we propose expanded office hours at child advocacy centers in all five boroughs. These centers are at the front lines of investigating abuse cases...ACS, the NYPD, prosecutors, doctors and nurses are all located within these facilities so that the abused can be treated and abusers brought to justice.
Finally, we propose adding preventive services programs at 21 more Beacons schools to provide a better link between social services and at risk families.
By taking these sensible steps, we can improve communications, investigations and prosecutions...and we can save lives.
Bulletproof Vests for Police
Just as the Nixzmary Brown case tragically illustrated the need to constantly reevaluate and improve the way government works so did the murder of Brooklyn Police Officer Dillon Stewart.
Had he been wearing an up-to-date bulletproof vests...Dillon Stewart might still be alive today.
Council Members Maria Baez and Vinnie Gentile have been vocal advocates of giving our officers the equipment they need to do their jobs safely. Today, we are proposing to spend $9.9 million so that our officers can have up-to-date, secure protective vests. Vests that may save their lives one day.
Funding for District Attorneys
I know I speak for a vast majority of New Yorkers in praising the Mayor's call to hire more police officers. Crime is down thanks in large part to the courage of the cops on the beat.
But as we all now know "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime...and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders."
The district attorneys, and thousands of ADAs who work for the public good everyday, deserve a lot of credit for making this a city of law and order. And I'd like to recognize and applaud Queens District Attorney Richard Brown and Manhattan DA Bob Morgenthau - the real Adam Schiff.
We need to make sure they and all the city's district attorneys have the resources they need to do their jobs. This cause has been championed by Public Safety Chair Peter Vallone, and you know what, he's right.
That's why, today, we are calling for restoring $17 million to the City's five district attorneys to begin to bring their funding back to pre 9/11 levels. There's simply no point in arresting more suspects if our district attorneys don't have the resources they need to fully and quickly prosecute them.
Tax Cuts for Small Businesses
Making government work better for people means making it work smarter...it means learning from our mistakes...it means expanding programs that work... And, yes, it means cutting taxes for individuals who need help most and companies that create jobs so that this City can continue to boom.
The Council has long advocated for property tax relief for seniors on fixed incomes. This year, Comptroller Bill Thompson, Council Members Leroy Comrie and Lew Fidler have proposed a rebate for low and middle-income seniors - a goal we all support.
The companies that need relief most -- the businesses that are the engine of our economic growth - aren't giant corporations, but small businesses in every borough and in every community. To help these small businesses grow and thrive, the state and federal governments have long exempted them from corporate income and franchise taxes. But in New York City, residents who own unincorporated businesses or S-corporations - many of these small companies - are taxed not once but twice.
For almost ten years, the Council has fought to correct this by providing a partial personal income tax credit for unincorporated business owners. Next year, we're proposing to expand it.
And we propose the creation of a new credit to S-Corporation owners who currently get no tax relief at all. These tax credits will give business owners another reason to locate here...to grow here...and to create good jobs here.
Manufacturing Jobs
While we pay special attention to small companies, we also need to take steps to promote and protect our manufacturing jobs. We don't assemble cars or airplanes, but in New York City there is a place for manufacturing in niche markets—like couture fashion, high-end furniture and printing.
This year, we're introducing a multi-faceted approach to strengthen New York City's manufacturing base:
- Creating investment tax credits for manufacturers that purchase new equipment;
-Expanding the Relocation Employment Assistance Program to include moves from areas recently rezoned for residential use;
-And increasing the Industrial Business Zone credit to $3,000 per employee to encourage manufacturers to move into industrial areas.
Manufacturing jobs are good jobs that provide stable incomes and career paths for thousands of New Yorkers. We need to do everything we can to keep them here.
Ending "Budget Dance"
This year, the City faces a healthy surplus. It might be tempting to propose these tax credits and policy initiatives without regard to the bottom line. But it wouldn't be fiscally responsible.
That's why we have identified more than $180 million dollars in the Mayor's budget that can be eliminated - including removing projected surplus funds associated with judgments and claims, delayed capital projects and the City's energy budget. We are committed to making responsible choices on both sides of the budget ledger—every year.
Finally, I want to end my remarks today by calling once again for a reform proposal that I believe will have a tremendous long-term impact in making government work better for people.
My colleagues, we must reform the budget process once and for all and put an end to the annual budget dance...this is the only way that we can truly end the culture of lobbying at City Hall and bring real accountability to government.
The annual budget dance has two partners and two steps.
The Mayor leads with an executive budget and proposed cuts. The Council follows with a response and proposed restorations. The list of cuts changes a bit from one year to the next and the amount swings with the City's economic fortunes. But the roles and the steps are the same year after year after year.
The whole thing feels a lot like the movie Groundhog Day.
The truth is, we end up fighting over only a tiny fraction of the City's budget. The City Charter, when it was rewritten in 1989, envisioned something very different.
The Charter Revision Commission envisioned an expense budget in which every agency budget is broken out by particular program, purpose or activity, accompanied by statements of the goals each was designed to accomplish and the amount of funds allocated. The Administration was supposed to provide the City Council with explanations of the impact a proposed level of funding would have on those individual programs. But that has never happened. The budget process today is virtually identical to the one the 1989 commission sought to reform.
For the most part, agency budgets are overly broad and don't detail individual programs. In many agencies, all personnel funding is stuffed into a single budget line - instead of being broken out into individual units of appropriation. The descriptions of programmatic objectives are often nothing more than a list of the programs themselves.
So there's no transparency, no way for us to tell exactly how taxpayer dollars are being spent, and no way to ensure that we're doing all we can to meet New Yorkers current needs.
If agency budgets were presented in the way the charter mandates, the budget debate could truly be one about priorities. And Council committees could do a better job of oversight and more effectively evaluate programs throughout the year.
Instead, we just go back to the same old budget dance. Well, starting this year, under the leadership of Finance Chair David Weprin and together with Mayor Bloomberg we are going to end the dance.
We're going to reform the process and start clearing up the unit of appropriation muddle so that we can start evaluating every program and base funding decisions on these criteria:
-Does the program fill a real need?
-Is it serving people effectively?
-Is there better way to help New Yorkers?
-Has the program already served its purpose?
-Given the City's fiscal situation and the array of competing priorities, can we still afford the program? And at what level?
We're going to make spending decisions not based on who has the most connected lobbyist...but based on whether the program truly works.
Ending the budget dance is absolutely critical to bringing transparency to the budget itself...to protecting taxpayers and eliminating waste...and to better serving the New Yorkers we're elected to represent.
Yeah there were a few snowflakes yesterday but spring is in the air today... Optimism abounds in the streets of our City and in this chamber. New York has come a long way back but we won't rest until we bring it a lot further.
Now that the sun is shining, let us work together to repair the roofs of all New Yorkers.
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