by Elisabeth von Uhl, Special for the Norwood News 

It’s not always evident the work our taxes does for us as a community.  Now, the new Speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, wants to make that work more visibly and equitably to New York City residents by a group of proposed reforms.  These reforms will also change how a Council Member’s discretionary funding is doled out in their Council Districts.

Discretionary funding is a huge sum of money from the City’s Expense Budget (comprised of taxpayer money) that is given to each Council District to be distributed by each Council Member.  There are a few types of discretionary funding: the main two are expenses funds which pay for salaries and services and capital funds which pay for more expensive, physical infrastructure.  Eligible non-profits can request funding from a Council Member’s discretionary funds.

A Council Member reviews these requests and then decides what non-profits or capital projects his or her discretionary monies should fund.  For example, our former Council Member Koppell funded the building of a dog run at the Williamsbridge Oval Park, provided up-starting funding for a Merchant’s Association on 204th Street and Bainbridge Avenue, and helped pay the salaries of those working at the West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Association.  Since 2006, a listing of where each dollar of each Council Member’s discretionary funding (not including capital projects like the dog run) went can be found on the website for the New York City Council.  If the new proposed reforms pass, that information, along with what capital projects were funded by discretionary funding, will be included on the NYC Open Data website. There you can find data on where the most 311 noise complaints are made or what is the most popular baby name in NYC.

Another huge change is that the amount of discretionary funding allocated to each Council District will be decided by a publicly-disclosed formula that takes into account the number of people living in poverty in that district.  Because the Upper East Side has less residents living below the poverty line, there are less needed soup kitchens, and, in theory, less needed funding for non-profits.  Before, the Speaker of the New York City Council decided how much each Council Member, and his or her Council District, was awarded in discretionary funding.  This system caused some to accuse the Speaker of using discretionary funding allocation as a way to force Council Members hands on legislative matters. Because a publicly-disclosed formula will now be used to award discretionary funding to each district, the Speaker will lose some power over Council Members.

Should these reforms pass the Council?  Or should each Council District receive the same amount of discretionary funding?  What capital projects or non-profits would you fund in the Norwood area?  

Editor’s Note: Elisabeth von Uhl is the president of the Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval, a grassroots group that brings awareness to the popular Williamsbridge Oval park in Norwood.