|
Dear New Yorkers,
As students return to school, it’s time to check the economic and fiscal numbers from this summer.
The national economy showed renewed signs of strength, led by brisk consumer spending. The labor market remains strong, and inflation has continued to moderate. New York City’s economy is giving mixed but mostly positive signals, with job levels, hotel occupancy, and Broadway theaters almost fully back to pre-pandemic levels. Lots more details below.
For our Spotlight, we focus on school budgets. Our analysis finds that DOE kept its promise to maintain school budgets at least at the same level as last fall, and a new formula provides a boost for schools with the highest concentration of high-needs students. But challenges loom as pandemic aid expires, and a new round of cuts is on the horizon. You can also download a dataset our team built to look up where your school fits in.
This month we’re introducing a new web resource, Accounting for Asylum Seeker Services, to provide greater transparency into the City’s response to the arrival of thousands of people seeking asylum, including the shelter census, budget information, and a database of emergency contracts. Our office keeps a close eye on those emergency contracts, which bring greater risk of waste and fraud as agencies scramble to procure services with less time and competition. We’ve approved 303 emergency contracts (out of over 30,000 total contracts overall) so far this term, including 69 for asylum seeker services. But last week, we declined to approve a $432 million contract with DocGo, citing numerous concerns with the procurement process and the company’s conduct, which is the subject of multiple investigations.
As we were going to press, Mayor Adams declared that the migrant crisis “would destroy New York City” and then announced a new round of budget cuts, instructing agencies to cut their budgets by a steep 15% by next spring. As I’ve said many times, we do need a real long-term savings plan, and more help from Washington and Albany. But while our office will carefully review the proposed cuts, one thing is immediately clear: scapegoating asylum seekers will not improve education, public safety, housing affordability, of quality of life for New Yorkers.
Feel free to share this “back to school” issue with your kids. You never know who will grow up to be a Comptroller someday (here's my 1st grade student picture!)
Sincerely,
Brad Lander
|
