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Dear New Yorkers,
You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. But as it turns out, no one actually has a comprehensive grasp of what is broken in New York City.
Our latest audit looked at New York City’s annual report on infrastructure and repair needs – the Asset Information Management System (AIMS) – and found that it consistently fails to accurately identify what needs to be fixed.
The AIMS report, which is managed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is insufficient and unreliable. It does not properly survey the conditions of city infrastructure. Nor does it accurately estimate repair or replacement costs. Simply put, OMB does not have consistent survey practices and lacks written policies to stay on track.
As a result, the City does not have an accurate understanding of the true costs to maintain City infrastructure assets—everything from sewers, roads, bridges, and parks, to schools, libraries, hospitals, tunnels—that are in need of repair. And not only that, it’s costing New Yorkers their safety, stability, and taxpayer dollars.
For example, AIMS estimated in 2020 that the maintenance costs of the West 79th Street Rotunda Complex in Riverside Park and West 79th Street Bridge would be $76 million. But when the project went to bid just a few months later, the actual cost was almost double that, at $149.9 million. Since the City isn’t keeping accurate inventories or accurately assessing the costs of maintaining infrastructure, we can't effectively plan for major infrastructure repair.
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