Photo by John McCarten13 via Flickr
The New York City Budget of $98.7 billion for the Financial Year 2022 was voted on in-person at the Council on Wednesday, and has passed, with 39 in favor, 6 against, and 4 not present.
New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, finance committee chair, Danny Dromm, capital budget subcommittee chair, Helen Rosenthal, and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the billion dollar budget agreement earlier on Wednesday, June 30, during a press conference. The Council said it includes major investments and restorations in education, seniors, youth and quality of life enhancements like sanitation services.
The Council said the budget will baseline successful Council programs that have been shown to help New Yorkers, and will also “reverse painful cuts felt across the City,” including those made to parks, cultural institutions and libraries. The City budget was the focus of major scrutiny last year amid the prevailing mass Black Lives Matter protests, with calls to defund the police being a major point of contention, as reported.
Progressives continued calls to cut the police budget after, last year, the Council and mayor were essentially accused of creative book-keeping, shifting money around between departments rather than actually reducing the NYPD budget. This year, leading contender for the position of city comptroller and progressive city councilman, Brad Lander, has supported some aspects of the agreed budget but said other parts lack transparency. It is also unlikely that progressives will be happy with the the NYPD budget arrangement.
Meanwhile, others favor maintaining and even increasing the police budget in order to tackle the spike in crime seen all across the City in the last year. As reported, May saw a 271 percent increase in shooting victims in the Bronx, compared to the same timeframe last year (which was already high).
In a press release, the council said the 2022 Financial Year budget, which was agreed on time and goes into effect at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, was negotiated with a focus on rebuilding, recovering, and reimagining the City in a more fair and equitable way. The vote on the budget at the Council’s stated meeting on Wednesday was the first in-person council meeting held in 16 months.
The budget includes over $426 million in citywide initiates, a welcome increase from last year’s $331 million. The Council said this allowed it to not only restore many programs to pre-pandemic levels, but also launch new initiatives and increase support for key programs in areas such as alternatives to incarceration, housing, foreclosure prevention, senior services, community development and help for small businesses.
The Council said it also fought for, and won, an additional $500 million in budget reserves. That money will be deposited in a new Rainy Day Fund Balance to bring the fund up to almost $1 billion. The fund was created in 2020 by the Council in response to recommendations from the Charter Reform Commission. This is the City’s first multi-year reserve account. According to the Council, it was created to allow the City to build up reserves in a more transparent way.
Speaking at the press conference during which the budget agreement was announced, Johnson said no one could have predicted the challenges the city faced since the last in-person stated meeting was held 16 months ago, nor the progress made to overcome the pandemic and reopen. “This budget is focused on rebuilding, recovering and reimagining our City in a more fair and equitable way,” the speaker said. “Once again, this Council negotiated a fiscally-responsible budget that helps all New Yorkers now and in the future. That was our commitment three and a half years ago when I became Speaker and I’m proud of this legislative body’s work to pass on-time and balanced budgets every year in good times and bad.”
The FY 2022 budget includes the following:
Investments in Education and Youth
- One Hundred Percent Fair Student Funding:
o $607 million in additional Fair Student Funding so that every single public school in the City will receive 100 percent of their Fair Student Funding allocation.
o Fair Student Funding is the primary funding source for school budgets and allows school principals the discretion to spend these funds on school essentials such as pedagogical staff, enrichment programs, and support staff.
- Additional Education Investments:
o $18 million for a class size reduction program;
o $24 million to increase the rate paid to the Summer Rising providers;
o $9 million to make community schools whole and $5 million to add ten new community schools;
o $2 million for the LGBTQ curriculum;
o and $10 million for the education equity curriculum;
o and $26 million for a citywide literacy curriculum to help students read at grade level and address the learning loss created by virtual learning.
- Support Students for a Better Tomorrow:
o $160 million for universal summer school, $22 million to expand special education pre-kindergarten, $19.7 million to restore College Access for All, and $500 million to support programs such as small group tutoring to help our students recover from the impact of the COVID-19 education setbacks.
- Expand Social Workers in Schools:
o $81.1 million for 650 positions to the Department of Education to ensure that every school has access to a mental health professional.
- Mental Health Continuum:
o DOE will provide $5 million for direct mental health support to students in a mental health continuum as recommended by the mayor’s leadership team on school climate and discipline. This continuum of services in high need schools would give students with significant mental health needs access to direct mental health services and behavioral supports so they can remain in school.
Photo by John McCarten9 via Flickr
Quality of Life
- Improving Sanitation Services: $20 million in sanitation services, including $7 million to expand organic drop-off sites, $4 million to fully fund the commercial waste zone program, $451,000 to restore the syringe collection cut, and $1.8 million to start a Zero Waste organics pilot at schools and the New York City Housing Authority.
- Keep Streets Clean: In order to combat street litter, $8.6 million for additional litter basket collection, $1.6 million to purchase 200 rat resistant baskets, and $935,000 for new public waste containers.
- Maintain Parks: $25 million to restore 150 Park maintenance workers, hire 80 Park Enforcement Patrol Officers, restore 15 Green Thumb staff, hire 50 Urban Park Rangers, maintain natural forests and trails, and remove tree stumps.
- Honor Cultural Institutions and Libraries: restoring the $10.3 million cut to libraries and the $30 million cut to cultural programs and the Cultural Institutions Grant subsidy that had previously been announced.
- Help Small Business Recover: The $100 budget will fund various programs to provide a lifeline to struggling businesses, and more than $5 million to restore the Commercial Lease Assistance Program.
- Safeguard Furry Friends: The budget restores $3 million for the Animal Care Center.
New Initiatives and Increased Support for Key Programs
- Hate crimes: In recognition of the abhorrent rise in anti-Asian hate incidents and the extreme impact of the pandemic on the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, the Council will create a new $4 million initiative called AAPI Community Support which will fund Asian-led and Asian-serving organizations to provide mental health services, racial literacy programs, anti-bias and hate crime work. Additionally, the budget includes $1 million for the Hate Crime Prevention Initiative, which supports community-based work aimed at preventing and responding to hate crimes, and $250,000 for Cure Hate, a program which supports swift, individualized responses to communities and victims of hate crimes, and will serve to heal communities and those affected by hate violence.
- Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in Tech Initiative: Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in Tech Initiative: This $700,000 budget funding supports career readiness training for residents of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) pursuing careers in the technology industry.
- Digital Inclusion and Literacy Initiative: The budget will fund with $4.6 million this initiative that supports programing in each of the 51 Council Districts that provide computer-based training and learning, technical skill development, improve internet access, and offer free public streaming services.
- LGBT Community Services: The $4.7 million funding will support the outer borough LGBT Services Consortium, which works to increase coordinated delivery of health and human services for LGBT individuals and families in the outer boroughs of the city.
- Trans Equity Programs: This $3.3 million allocation will support a range of services to help empower the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community. Funding may support education programs, employment services, workforce development, healthcare navigation, legal guidance, community workshops, or academic research, among others.
- Children Under Five: A total of $2 million for programs which provide mental health treatment to children aged five years and younger. Some treatment activities may include screening and clinical evaluation; individual, small group, and child-parent psychotherapy; consultation to pediatricians, preschool teachers, and child welfare workers; and trauma-informed interventions.
- Geriatric Mental Health: Programs funded under this $3.4 million allocation initiative support organizations that provide a range of mental health services to older adults in non-clinical settings, such as senior centers, drop-in centers, religious institutions, social clubs, homeless prevention programs, and individual homes.
Alternatives to Incarceration and Investments to Avoid Criminal Justice Involvement
- Alternatives to Incarceration:
o Almost $14.5 million for programs which provide individuals involved in the criminal justice system with alternatives to pre-trial detention, jail or prison. The programs include community service and substance abuse counseling, as well as short-term and long-term housing, job placement, and vocational training.
o The Council enhanced the ATI initiative by $2.6 million in two years, including a $1.6 million restoration to the FY 20 level, and an additional $1 million enhancement.
- Over $70 million dollars have been put towards existing and new initiatives to support and expand public safety alternatives to policing and incarceration. These funds, which were announced as part of the policing reform package the Council passed in March, include:
o the expansion of Summer Youth Employment to a total of 75,000 slots with an addition of 5,000 new spots in summer 2021 for CUNY students;
o $14.5 million to fund a new mental health case management program to provide 850 people with mobile and site-based intensive, ongoing case management services in under-served communities;
o an additional $4.4 million to double FY2021’s available funds for Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) Teams, which serve those with recent and frequent contact with the mental health, criminal justice, and homeless services systems, recent behavior that is unsafe and escalating, and those who were poorly served by traditional treatment models.
- Crisis Management System:
o $2.9 million in Council funding will support the Crisis Management System, which supports community-based anti-violence work and helps move away from policing as a solution to every problem.
o The Council funding is in addition to another $27 million, which will be added to the budget to fund Cure Violence programs as part of our agreement with the de Blasio Administration. Cure programs are part of the Crisis Management System. The $27 million is expected to double the cure violence workforce in calendar year 2021 and, with an additional administration funding in out years, triple the workforce by 2022.
Photo by John McCarten9 via Flickr
Affordability and Housing
- Foreclosure Prevention Programs: This initiative will receive $4.25 million for programs like the purchase of distressed mortgage notes, foreclosure prevention counseling and referral services, legal assistance, outreach, education, and advocacy around subprime lending and mortgage foreclosures.
- Stabilizing NYC: The $4 million in funding will help combat the loss of affordable housing and defend low-income tenants from harassment and eviction, by combining legal and organizing resources into a citywide front against “predatory equity,” helping tenants hold their landlords accountable for lack of repairs, bogus eviction cases, and affirmative harassment.
- Community Land Trust: This initiative, which supports organizations that work on a neighborhood level to develop and expand the community land trust model citywide, will receive $1.5 million. Community land trusts create and preserve affordable housing through nonprofit ownership of land.
Baselined and Social Safety Net Programs
- Adult Literacy Education: $8 million for the Adult Literacy Initiative. This program provides immigrant New Yorkers with the tools to achieve higher levels of literacy. There are more than 2.2 million adults in New York City without English language proficiency or a high school diploma.
- Work, Learn, Grown: $9.7 million for the Council’s year-round youth employment program. Work, Learn, Grow helps participants build work skills and aptitude by launching them into the diverse work opportunities available, through direct exposure and access to a paid workforce program.
- Urban Advantage: A $3.5 million baselined allocation to support teaching science through partnerships with eight science-based cultural institutions.
- Prevent Hunger: The budget will include another $25 million for fresh food and community-based food pantries.
- Protect our Foster Youth: $12 million for the Fair Futures program.
Meanwhile, Lander said that after a pandemic year that threw the City into an economic crisis, New Yorkers were fortunate to be in a far better financial position, thanks in large part to federal relief, as well as progressive revenue increases at the state level. “As a result, rather than the feared austerity that would have badly constrained our recovery, we are in a position to take a Keynesian approach to this crisis, by investing in creating new jobs, supporting small businesses and cultural organizations, getting our schools open safely and supportively, keeping our communities safe and putting our city on stronger fiscal footing for the future,” he said.
“Many of the investments in the budget agreement between the mayor and the Council are very good ones. Achieving 100% Fair Student Funding for our schools for the first time ever is a huge step forward. And I am glad that the agreement increases by $500 million our initial deposit into the new Rainy Day Fund, standing it up at $1 billion, a meaningful first step to prepare for future downturns.”
The councilman added, “Unfortunately, however, the budget agreement fails to provide sufficient transparency about too many critical issues. As I wrote back in early May, and as a group of civic and business leaders wrote earlier this month, we especially need more transparency and smarter spending of American Rescue Plan dollars.”
Lander said more clarity was needed on where one-time ARP spending is being applied against recurring obligations. “Many of these items are strong investments (e.g. 3K, critical support for nonprofits), but they should be reflected in the City’s “baseline” budget, and matched to recurring revenues, especially given looming out-year deficits.”
He said a much clearer description of strategies and outcomes was also needed, so New Yorkers could evaluate whether ARP spending (American Rescue Plan) actually achieves its goals (e.g. creates jobs, saves small businesses, supports students’ social, emotional, and academic needs, etc). “And we need to apply an equity lens to these spending decisions, to ensure that the hardest-hit communities receive the relief they deserve,” he said.
The councilman also said he was also disturbed that the agreement increases the NYPD budget by nearly $200 million and increases headcount at both NYPD and at the Department of Corrections. “All neighborhoods need and deserve to be safe, and we must confront rising levels of gun violence. But New York City already has more police officers per capita than nearly every large American city, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.”
The leading city comptroller candidate said, in this moment, the City should instead be investing more in other strategies for genuine community safety, including mental health care, supportive housing, cure violence programs, school guidance counselors, and youth jobs.
“Finally, I’m deeply frustrated with the lack of information about this budget, provided to the public, and even to city council members ourselves. Schedule C has not been up for 24 hours, as has long been a Council commitment and practice,” he said. “This Council should not dole out hundreds of millions of dollars in discretionary funding with just a few hours notice. And we had even less notice on changes to the baseline from the executive budget, and on billions in capital spending. This is the least transparent budget agreement in my 12 years as a council member.”
Lander said that he would therefore he voting against the City’s FY22 expense budget. “I will continue to push for more budget transparency, more strategic spending of federal and state resources, more care in preparing for future economic crises, and a budget that lifts up, protects, and provides opportunity for all of our communities,” he said.
For his part, District 15 Councilman Oswald Feliz, posted on Facebook earlier on Wednesday that he was supportive of the new budget and would shortly release his reasons why.
During the vote, Council desks were positioned a few feet apart for social distancing. Signs on doors warned people not to enter without masks but only about a quarter of staff and members had face coverings on. Press desks had been removed.
Councilman Ulrich joked that they moved his desk all the way to the back by the radiators, and then turned the heat on. Desks did not have microphones so members had to come up to mics in the front of the room to explain their votes.
There was a pause during the vote for technical problems with the live streaming but it was quickly fixed, and there was applause when Johnson welcomed members back for the first in-person stated meeting in 16 months. Johnson also led the other members in honoring the 33,415 New Yorkers who have died from COVID-19.
*Additional reporting by New York Post City Hall bureau chief, Julia Marsh.
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