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: Even with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on track to receive $6.5 billion in additional federal aid, there is still potential trouble ahead—for the authority and the city.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: A new brief focusing on our latest estimates for tax revenues based on our recent economic forecast and the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget and financial plan through 2025.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: A more detailed presentation of our most recent economic forecast for the city reveals a slow path towards recovery, with some sectors of the economy continuing to trail through 2025.
FOCUS ON THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET: Over the past year, shifts in the composition of the city’s homeless population, increased spending on rental assistance, and pandemic-related aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have altered the city’s costs for providing shelter for the homeless.
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
PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOCUS: Just hours before the Mayor released the 2022 Preliminary Budget he learned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was increasing its reimbursement rate to the city for Covid-related costs. How much more can the city expect and what does this mean for city spending?
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.
PRELIMINARY BUDGET REPORT: In this new report we present our latest economic forecast and analysis of the Mayor’s 2022 Preliminary Budget and Financial Plan through 2025. In the form of a chart book the report presents our key findings on the local economy and projections of tax revenues & spending.
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?
IBO’s fiscal outlook report presents our latest economic forecast for the city along with our projections of revenues and expenditures under the Mayor’s November financial plan.
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?
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.
The New York City Independent Budget Office today released 14 more measures that could reduce city spending or raise tax and other revenues as the city faces a difficult fiscal climate.
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?
]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?
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.
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?
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: Small businesses are an essential part of the New York City economy. Which industries have the most small businesses—and how much do they pay on average?
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: Following an investigation into health care in the city’s jails, in 2015 Mayor de Blasio shifted responsibility for providing health care in the jails from private firms to the city’s public hospital system. Despite a shrinking jail population, the cost of care has increased.
LETTER: The city’s public schools are set to open next week (9/21/2020) with more than the usual number of teachers and the need for many safeguards. Council Member Mark Treyger asked us what this will cost.
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.
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?
NYC BY THE NUMBERS: Was $1 billion cut from the New York Police Department budget for this year? And how much of that cut continues next year and beyond in the city’s financial plan?
Report regarding the collection, retention, and disclosure of identifying information by such agency and any contractors or subcontractors utilized by such agency
The city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, was regaining fiscal stability. Then the Covid-19 pandemic arrived. There may be enough federal aid to help H+H recover, at least in the near term. How much can the system expect to receive and what are the fiscal challenges ahead?
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?
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?
REPORT: With hunger and food insecurity rising amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the de Blasio Administration launched the Grab & Go food program at many city schools, where anyone in need could pick up free meals. But were the sites located in the areas with the greatest economic need?
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.
A report on the agency's efforts during the previous quarter to implement the plan adopted pursuant to paragraph nineteen (annual plan) of Section 815(a),including details of agency's efforts to implement equal employment practices, including statistical information regarding total employment, including provisional, seasonal, per-diem and part-time employees, new hiring and promotions in a manner which facilitates understanding of an agency's efforts to provide fair and effective equal opportunity employment for minority group members, women and members of other groups who are employed by, or who seek employment with, city agencies
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.
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?
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.
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.
We often get questions about NYPD overtime spending. So here's an update: In a 2-week period roughly since antiracism protests began, NYC spent $115 million on police overtime, over 4X spent in same period last year.
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.
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 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?
A report on the agency's efforts during the previous quarter to implement the plan adopted pursuant to paragraph nineteen (annual plan) of Section 815(a),including details of agency's efforts to implement equal employment practices, including statistical information regarding total employment, including provisional, seasonal, per-diem and part-time employees, new hiring and promotions in a manner which facilitates understanding of an agency's efforts to provide fair and effective equal opportunity employment for minority group members, women and members of other groups who are employed by, or who seek employment with, city agencies