This has been a difficult school year, perhaps most difficult for students living in neighborhoods hardest hit by Covid. At the request of WNYC we have looked at attendance figures for schools, with a focus on schools in these hard-hit neighborhoods.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: The Covid-driven tailspin in the local economy has led to a big drop in expected property tax revenue next year. We explain how the finance department derives the market and assessed values underlying the falloff in projected revenue.
The city’s public housing authority has to deal with removing lead paint, fixing broken elevators, a backlog of thousands of other repairs—and growing budget gaps. See the details on the housing authority’s fiscal challenges.
With the parents of thousands of preschoolers needing to go to work and many K-8th grade students doing schoolwork remotely, the de Blasio Administration created the Learning Bridges and Learning Labs programs to provide care, supervision, and help with classes at hundreds of sites across the city.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: A number of changes have been proposed that would affect how the city’s annual contribution to its pension funds are calculated. We explain the changes and their implications for the city’s budget:
There’s been much attention over the past year to how much the city spends on the police department. But policing is only one part, albeit a large one, of a bigger system that includes the courts, detention & related functions. We look at the full cost of the justice system and how much it has grown
DATA TABLES: We have updated the fiscal history section of our website with new data on New Yorkers’ income and personal income tax liability. The new data, the latest available, covers tax years 2017 and 2018.
While most New York City employees cannot receive pensions until they turn 62, police officers and firefighters can retire at any age after they have met their required number of years of service. Since 2010, how many of them began receiving pensions before turning 50?
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: The pandemic led to staggering job losses in the city. How much were efforts to find jobs for the city’s public-assistance recipients affected?
BUDGET OPTIONS FOR NYC: We present 14 more ways the city can cut costs or raise revenue, with some pro and cons for each of the measures. Our compilation now includes more than 100 budget options.
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the Northeast may be in for a snowy winter. Regardless of such predictions, the city budgets for snow removal based on a formula in the City Charter. Some years this leads to savings, other years shortfalls. What’s the cost of digging out?
In 2016, the Mayor and City Council provided the libraries with a substantial hike in their subsidies with the aim of increasing public access and use of the more than 200 library branches across the five boroughs. How well have those goals been met?
]Roughly 150,000 special education students in New York City schools receive speech therapy and other “related services.” Many students are supposed to receive one or more services multiple times a week. With hybrid schedules, how many can receive their services in person?
How have the shares of New York City 3- and 4-year olds enrolled in public preschool, private preschool, and not enrolled at all changed since the de Blasio Administration rolled out its universal preschool programs?
IBO has updated two sections of its Education Indicators: Student Attendance (data on average attendance and chronic absenteeism rates in traditional public schools) & Student Achievement (standardized test scores for grades 3-8 and Regents exam performance for high school students).
IBO updated the Fiscal History section of its website with Fiscal Year 2021 data on staffing and spending. Explore citywide numbers or drill down to the agency, as well as debt service, and revenues.
IBO presents 10 new ways NYC can cut costs or raise revenue. As with all of our 100+ options, we neither endorse nor reject the ideas. See the descriptions & estimates of revenues/savings, with pros & cons for each option.
As part of our recently released Education Indicators, IBO examined what impact living in a low-income neighborhood may have on student achievement, as well as how attending a school with a higher concentration of students from low-income neighborhoods affects individual achievement.
EXECUTIVE BUDGET FOCUS: Mayor Adams has made investing in public safety a top priority of his early administration. IBO examines what programs under this umbrella have received increases in funding in the Mayor’s first two budget proposals, as well as other programs that have not.
New York State has proposed a plan to develop 10 new, mixed-use towers around Penn Station & to use the property tax revenue generated to finance the reconstruction & possible expansion of the country’s busiest train station. We examine what is included in the state’s plan & the fiscal implications
The Mayor’s Executive Budget for FY 2023 restored some funding for the city’s organics recycling program, which suffered cuts in the Mayor’s previous budget proposal. However, none of the reinstated funding is for the expansion of the city’s curbside collection program.
Without action from state lawmakers last week, the 421-a tax exemption will expire on June 15, 2022. However, even if the program is not renewed in a future session, it will continue to cost the city property tax revenue for years to come.
The Adams Administration added funds for homeless shelter costs in the Preliminary Budget. IBO estimates that additional funds for shelter will be necessary, and that the city will also need to increase budgeted amounts for its homeless outreach and its housing voucher programs in fiscal year 2023.
A key part of the Mayor Adam's Program to the Eliminate the Gap (PEG) is budgeted headcount reductions. IBO examines how other actions contained within the budget affect the number of headcount reductions the Mayor proposes to make.
In this Budget Brief, IBO provides more details on our latest economic forecast and estimates of tax revenues, as well as a comparison with the Mayor’s tax projections included in the Preliminary Budget.
NYC is set to receive $7.3b in federal education aid from the 2 most recent stimulus acts, the CRRSA & ARPA. IBO details their planned uses and examines how much is budgeted for initiatives that will likely continue after federal funding stops.
As the city relaunches curbside organics collection after a yearlong suspension due to Covid budget cuts. IBO examines the cost of the city’s program and models what's needed to make the program as fiscally sustainable as it is environmentally.
New York City by the Numbers: In fall 2019, the New York City Department of Education capped most school suspensions at 20 days; IBO examines the potential impacts of the policy change.
For many years, the city’s capital plans, which outline when funds for capital projects will be committed, have been substantially front-loaded with much of the funds slotted for the first year of each four-year plan—even though it was unlikely funds could or would be committed in that timeframe.
The Campaign Finance Board provides public funding to candidates running for local office. The 2021 election cycle was the first in which it implemented recent changes to increase public financing to campaigns. IBO e looks at the amount spent in '21 & how it compares to previous elections.
In this brief, IBO examines the funding level for staff at the Civilian Complaint Review Board—the city agency charged with investigating police misconduct—and how it compares with City Charter mandated levels. We also examine how the time it takes for the review board to complete its investigations
Medicaid enrollment and claims in New York City have grown over the course of the course of pandemic, but the program’s extra costs have fallen on the federal government. IBO examines recent Medicaid trends and what the future might hold for the program & the city’s coffers.
The Adams Administration increased funding for the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program in the Preliminary Budget. IBO explores what we know about the planned expansion thus far and what questions remain.
Anticipating a reduction in rental income, NYC sharply reduced the assessments used to calculate ‘22 tax bills. These reductions turned out to be an overestimate & the ’23 tax roll now reflects this as projected growth. IBO examines the reason for the change.
Included in its Preliminary Budget, the Adams Administration proposed 3 tax programs: one to enhance the value of city’s EITC, which increases the value of wages and salaries for low- and moderate-income tax filer; as well as 2 tax breaks to incentivize the development of childcare programs in NYC
FOCUS ON THE EXECUTIVE BUDGET: The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the burdens of the city’s fiscally and physically troubled public housing. Does the Mayor’s Executive Budget provide help?
FOCUS ON THE EXECUTIVE BUDGET: Capital funding for affordable housing preservation and development programs has been shifted and, in some instances, shrunk in the Mayor’s latest budget plan.
FOCUS ON THE EXECUTIVE BUDGET: The Mayor’s budget for Vision Zero includes a relatively small cut in the Department of Transportation’s expense budget but an increase in capital spending.
Subway and bus ridership fell with onset of Covid-19, playing havoc with the MTA’s budget. Many of the same factors keeping riders off the MTA’s rails, buses, bridges & tunnels is also leading to a slump in the agency’s dedicated tax revenues, another primary source of its funding.
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a surge in unemployment and an increase in government assistance, including cash assistance grants. How much have New York city’s cash assistance rolls grown in recent months?
REPORT: Our new economic forecast and projections for tax revenue & spending based on the recently adopted budget for fiscal year 2021 & financial plan through 2024. The report, which includes our latest projection of job losses & gains and estimates of budget surpluses and gaps in the coming years.
NYC BY TNE NUMBERS: When New York City went on a pandemic “pause” in the spring, work at some 35,000 construction sites came to a halt. But not for long. How many sites restarted work—and why—during the pause?
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: With City Hall preparing for layoffs due to the pandemic-related recession, IBO looked at the rise and fall in city staff before, during, and after the Great Recession. Which agencies had the deepest cuts? Which grew the most in recent years?
New York City’s budget includes more than $450m this year to fund the offices of the city’s 5 District Attorneys and Special Narcotics Prosecutor. In the 1980s & 1990s, as the number of arrests climbed staffing at these offices grew. But as arrests fell sharply over the past decade, did staff fall?
There are many complications to reopening schools in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of them is the basic question of whether the city’s public schools have enough physical capacity to accommodate students and teachers while social distancing.
FOCUS ON THE EXECUTIVE BUDGET: Before the Mayor’s recent announcement that that the city may need to lay off or furlough as many as 22,000 municipal workers, the Executive Budget included the elimination of some vacant positions and a partial hiring freeze.
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: The Covid-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to the importance of parks and open space in neighborhoods. But some NYC neighborhoods have substantially more park space than others. We map the differences by square foot per resident.