Covid-19 has had a substantial effect on the municipal workforce. We look at the effect during the peak months of the pandemic by examining the use of sick leave by uniformed staff members and civilian staff.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown brought about extraordinary economic distress for New York City and its residents. That distress is now easing thanks to an influx of federal aid to the city budget and the successful development and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
The New York City Independent Budget Office is today adding to its compilation of roughly 100 budget options for the city—ways New York could cut spending or raise revenue. In addition to the new measures introduced today, we have revised or updated a number of initiatives included in our online Bud
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: Last year, the Mayor suspended the sanitation department’s organics collection program because of budget constraints and too many partially filled trucks. But participation varied throughout the city.
A recent court decision may allow Gowanus to be the next neighborhood rezoned under the Mayor’s initiative, but 6 other neighborhood rezoning plans—from East New York to the Bay Street corridor--are already approved and underway. We look at the status of funding for 87 local projects.
Nearly 400 public schools with grades 9-12 offer advancement placement courses. Course content is very similar across the schools, but some schools weight student grades, potentially turning a B into an A. With appendix table.
TESTIMONY: IBO’s Elizabeth Brown presented testimony to the NYC City Council on key findings from her evaluation of the IDA’s Industrial Program. See the PowerPoint slides
Report focuses on the allocation and uses of resources for various competing budget priorities, including the various options available for saving money and raising revenue, as well as the weighed/approximated costs and benefits for each option.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: Under the Governor’s budget plan, state aid to NYC schools would grow next year. But the outlook for school aid is complicated by an influx of federal pandemic school aid and the Governor’s proposed restructuring and reductions of school support from Albany.
As the pandemic swept the city and lead to school closures, job losses, and quarantine, food insecurity grew. New York City spending for emergency food grew too.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: City spending on tuition and other supports for special needs students under the rubric of Carter Cases continues to rise rapidly.
In addition to last summer’s threat of potential layoffs, the Mayor has implemented an attrition program, with agencies allowed to replace only one out of every three departing full-time employees. How far has headcount fallen and which agencies have seen the biggest staffing declines?
IBO Director Ronnie Lowenstein's testimony to the New York City Council on our latest economic forecast and review of the Mayor’s Executive Budget and financial plan.
Following with the City Council's Safe Housing Act, the Alternative Enforcement Program was implemented by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The purpose of this program was to improve the conditions of the city's rundown apartment buildings. Landlords have four months to fix their rundown apartments. After those four months, the city will reinspect the building, repair it, and send the bill to the owner, who will have to repay the city.
This report explains the features that contribute to the stability of the property tax system. It shows how caps on growth in assessed value can lead to higher assessed values and how assessments move through the pipeline and how the pipieline grew through 2008, the year of the downturn.
This article presents the budget challenges faced by the City in the upcoming fiscal year. The City faces challenges arising from rising pension costs and the expiration of federal funding, which makes it more difficult to keep the budget balanced.
This report compares schools proposed for closing against other schools. The schools proposed for closing are found to be low performing, with below average student performance. However, there is no guarantee that a closing school will be replaced by a more successful one.
The city is currently in relatively good fiscal condition, due to steps to cut costs and raise revenue. However, the Mayor's budget does not address potential new problems, leaving pressure against City Hall to ensure the preservation of programs that will be affected by these problems. Economic uncertainties threaten the city and can affect the city's employment growth and tax revenues.
This report lists the budget options the City faces after the recession. The recession caused the loss of a significant amount of state aid and federal cutbacks, as well as growing pension and health expenditures, debt service, and other costs. These problems must be rectified and the options listed are potential solutions.
For school-aged children living in temporary housing--homeless shelters, doubled up, or other transitory situations--getting to and succeeding in school can be a greater challenge than for their classmates. This report explores those challenges, with a particular focus on the high absentee rate among students living in shelters and some of the factors contributing to their low attendance. In addition to IBO's usual quantitative emphasis, this report includes the perceptions and insights of homeless families; teachers, principals, and other school staff; and central and district education department administrators captured through roughly 100 interviews and 10 focus groups.
Ten years ago, following the public outcry after the death of Nixzmary Brown, the Administration for Children's Services undertook an effort to increase staffing and lower caseloads among the caseworkers responsible for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect. In this report IBO examines staffing, caseloads, length of time on the job, funding and spending, and other aspects of this effort in the years since its implementation.
The Bloomberg Administration issued its update of the budget for this fiscal year and financial plan for the ensuing years through 2015. The understated release reflects a
budget plan that appears to leave the city idling at a fiscal crossroads as Bloomberg Administration scans ahead, trying to discern where the roads may lead.
Includes IBO Expenditure Projections, IBO Revenue Projections, Pricing Differences Between IBO and the Bloomberg Administration, and IBO versus Mayor's Office
of Management and Budget Economic Forecasts
FISCAL OUTLOOK: IBO's annual report on the city's outlook for the years ahead features our latest economic forecast and includes projections of job growth as well as updated tax revenue estimates for this fiscal year and through 2020. In addition, the report presents IBO's re-estimates of city expenditures based on the Mayor's November financial plan and our projection for budget surpluses and gaps in 2017 through 2020.
The release last week of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's preliminary budget for 2012 and financial plan through 2015 prompted renewed concerns
over the agency's fiscal outlook. Transportation budget analysts have been praticularly critical of the amount of borrowing in the plan and the assumption of no wage increases
for the authority's workforce.
Just days after the events of September 11, 2001, President Bush and Congress promised that $20 billion in federal aid would be provided to help New York City
recover from the attack. Given the unprecedented scale of the destruction-physical, economic, and emotional-no one had real estimates of what the needs
and costs would be. As a result, the federal promise was loosely defined. Assistance was provided for immediate relief but a large portion of the aid was to flow to New York
over time as specific uses of the assistance were determined.
Web text supplement - Delays and disagreements over planning and financing the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, as well as a weak market for
downtown office space, marked much of the first half decade following 9/11.
In 2009 the state law granting the Mayor control of the New York City public school system was renewed. That renewal included a requirement that the New York City
Independent Budget Office "enhance official and public understanding" of educational matters of the school system. The law also requires the Chancellor of the school system to provide IBO with the
data that they deem nevessary to conduct their analyses.
With the Governor's recent proposal, the now lapsed 421-a tax break for housing is again a major focus of the public policy agenda. Despite the fact that 421-a costs the city a considerable amount in foregone tax dollars--$1.4 billion this fiscal year due to prior commitments--there has been little research examining the tax break's effect on housing prices and whether the tax benefit efficiently fosters housing development, the 421-a program's primary goal. We explore these questions in regard to condos receiving 421-a benefits.
Unlike many of the other major de Blasio Administration initiatives, there has been relatively little focus on ThriveNYC, which aims to greatly expand access to behavioral health services in the city. We detail the resources being committed to the 54 programs under the ThriveNYC umbrella
IBO presents its annual fiscal outlook report, featuring our latest local economic forecast along with our estimates of revenue and spending under the financial plan released by the Mayor last month.
The Mayor’s latest budget plan adds $23 million over the years 2020-2023 for his LeadFreeNYC initiative, and brings the total amount of funds budgeted for the program to $39 million. But that still leaves the program’s funding well short of the original commitment.
The city has committed more than $4 billion over 10 years that can be used to meet the terms of the settlement with federal officials for repairs at public housing developments across the city. Yet the full cost of the settlement is unclear, and may require additional city funds.
The Governor’s budget proposes that New York City—and just New York City—pay 10 percent of annual Family Assistance costs, a program that has been funded completely with federal dollars in the past.
In a 2015 plea agreement, BNP Paribas bank paid $8.9 billion in criminal penalties, including nearly $900 million to the city. Much of those funds remain unused.
Foundation Aid is the largest form of state support for the city’s schools. The budget proposals from the Governor and the Legislature remain far apart, not just in dollar amount but in how some of the funding can be used.
Under the Mayor’s plan, the budget for summer jobs for youth would increase by more than $30 million, but the number of slots for participants would fall.
The fiscal condition of the city’s public hospitals may be looking better than in the recent past, but a prognosis of modest shortfalls remains for the years ahead.
As an advisory commission appointed by the Mayor and Council Speaker looks at ways to reform the city’s property tax system, we consider an idea suggested by a number of policy- and opinion-makers: reducing the percentage of a home’s market value that is subject to the property tax.
We’ve updated and reformulated our compendium of ways the city can raise money or cut spending. Budget Options for New York City is now designed as a web-based publication. This enables us to update budget options or add new ones as circumstances change or new information becomes available.
This document provides a comprehensive description of the portion of the New York City waste stream managed by the city’s Department of Sanitation (DOS). It is intended as a reference document. Actual FY1992-2000 data are provided, as well as projections from DOS for fys 2000-02
This document provides an update to IBO’s February 2001 Background Paper entitled “Overview of the Waste Stream Managed by the NYC Department of Sanitation.” Here, we present a condensed survey of the same data for fiscal years 2000-2004.
What if the de Blasio Administration’s proposal to base admissions to the city’s specialized high schools on grades and the state assessment tests had been in place for 8th graders in school year 2017-18? How would it have changed the demographics and achievement levels of students who got offers?
IBO presents an overview of our analysis of the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget for 2020 and financial plan through 2023. The report includes our projections of city budget gaps and surpluses, highlights of our latest economic forecast, and re-estimates of revenue and spending under the Mayor’s plan
We project that NYC tax revenue will grow from $61.0 billion this year to nearly $70.6 billion in 2023. Get the details behind the numbers in our projections for individual taxes.