In 2009, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs concluded a multiyear initiative to reform the Cultural Development Fund, the primary source of city funding for hundreds of arts and cultural organizations throughout the five boroughs.
There is a great deal of variation in average per pupil allocations across community school districts. In 2013-2014, the last school year in which budgets were set by the Bloomberg Administration, school district allocations averaged $8,255 per student in grades pre-k through 8.
About 75,000 students—or over 7 percent—of the city’s 1.1 million public school students lived in the city’s homeless shelter system or were doubled up in the home of a friend or family member at some point during school year 2013-2014.
Build and the Industrial Development Agency play important roles in helping to finance economic development and job creation in the city, yet they are not city agencies. This report looks at their history.
Before the recent announcement of ThriveNYC, the de Blasio Administration’s initiatives to improve access to mental health programs for youth, adults, and seniors, the Mayor had previously launched measures to boost behavioral health programs for the city’s inmate population.
Over the past 10 years, New York City’s overtime spending has increased from $928 million in 2006 to $1.659 billion in 2015, an increase of $731 million, or close to 80 percent (about 40 percent after accounting for inflation).
In light of two recent high-profile school rezoning controversies in which overcrowded schools serving higher income students existed near underutilized schools largely populated by students in public housing, IBO examined the distribution of students from public housing across NYC public schools.
Over the past five years, total federal aid to New York City has declined from $7.9 billion in 2011 to just under $7.0 billion in 2015, a decrease of roughly $933 million, or nearly 12 percent. The change was mainly due to the drop in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act federal stimulus dollars.
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: Questioning local efforts, Governor Cuomo's budget plan proposes new oversight and administrative burdens for the city's homeless services. But the de Blasio Administration and City Council have already expanded key outreach and prevention programs-for which the state provides no support.
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: As the city's public hospitals have faced ongoing fiscal challenges, the de Blasio Administration has increased the city's funding for the system.
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: The Mayor's budget includes millions of dollars in new funding to cover the cost of an annuity fund for school staff that guarantees 8.25 percent returns a year.
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: Governor Cuomo's executive budget includes two proposals that would substantially reduce state aid for the city's Administration for Children's Services and a third proposal that excludes the city from funding for the state's Raise the Age juvenile justice initiative
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: The Governor's executive budget provides less school aid than expected by the de Blasio Administration in its preliminary budget, shifts some charter school costs to the city, and seeks to increase state oversight of the city's school spending
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: After an initial rise of about 10 percent in the cash assistance caseload following the de Blasio Administration's changes, which made the public assistance system less punitive and more focused on education and training, the caseload increase now appears to have leveled off.
Although students with disabilities comprised about 18 percent of the overall student body in school year 2012-2013, they made up about 30 percent of the suspended student population (defined as the population of students who have been suspended at least one time).
Under federal and state law, families with young children receiving cash assistance and participating in work or training programs are guaranteed vouchers to pay for their choice of child care providers.
With the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the share of adults in New York City without health insurance dropped from 20.9 percent in 2013 to 13.8 percent in 2014, a 7.1 percentage point decline.
In September 2012, New York City launched a set of juvenile justice initiatives that included the expansion of alternative-to-placement programs for youth ages 7-15 found by Family Court to be juvenile delinquents.
New York City recycles a wide variety of waste, but some materials are more likely to be recycled than others. The city has three solid waste streams: refuse, paper recycling, and metal/glass/plastic recycling. Overall, about 44 percent of recyclable material is “captured” by city recycling programs
QCEW data produced by the New York State Department of Labor shows that there are 226,900 private firms in NYC with about 3.8 million workers on their payrolls.
Graffiti-Free NYC is a city program that removes graffiti at no cost to the owners of residential, commercial, or industrial buildings. Anyone can report graffiti on any property by calling 311.
When representatives of the real estate industry and construction unions failed to reach an agreement over wages in January, the 421-a tax benefit program came to a halt for the construction of new multifamily housing.
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.
The use of sick leave by municipal employees varies widely among agencies. Uniformed employees in the fire, correction, and sanitation departments tend to use sick leave at higher rates than other city workers.
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.