New York City Council - The Council of the City of New York

THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

CITY HALL
NEW YORK, NY 10007
(212) 788-7116
**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
April 11, 2008

Contact: 212-788-7116
Release # 027-2008

SPEAKER QUINN ANNOUNCES COMPREHENSIVE OVERHAUL OF COUNCIL BUDGET PRACTICES
Citizens Union Hails Quinn as Reform Leader; NYPIRG Applauds Measures

City Hall – City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn today announced a comprehensive overhaul of the City Council’s budget allocation process, continuing efforts to strengthen accountability and increase transparency. The reforms include: transforming the Speaker’s program allocations into a competitive, merit-based Request For Proposals (RFP) process; creating an Independent Compliance Office within the Council to monitor budget and procurement actions; and, strengthening the requirements for awarding funds for local initiatives, including adoption of rigorous new certification requirements for recipients developed in consultation with the Office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

“The people of New York must have full faith in the way public dollars are allocated,” said Speaker Quinn. “We have made significant progress in improving the budget process over the last two years, and I remain fully committed to making even more reforms and further strengthening the system. We owe it to the people of New York City to redouble our efforts and make this Council more transparent than the one we inherited.”

Dick Dadey, Executive Director of Citizens Union praised today’s announcement and said, “Citizens Union supports Speaker Quinn’s announced reforms to bring further transparency, new oversight and increased inclusiveness to a merit based decision making process of the City Council’s review and enactment of the city budget. Her proactive response to address the past practice of some member items is very encouraging to see happen. Speaker Quinn is a reform leader in city government and these actions today speak to her continued leadership in this regard.”

“We think that these reforms will increase fairness and transparency in the giving out of funds by the Speaker and by Council Members,” said Gene Russianoff, Senior Attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). “These changes are in a line with other major past reforms adopted by Speaker Quinn and the Council, including more transparency for member items, greater disclosure of lobbying and lower limits on contributions by individuals doing business with the City.”

Changes to the Speaker’s Program Allocations
The funds traditionally allocated by the Speaker will now be distributed through a public competitive, merit-based RFP process. This initiative will be modeled after the successful merit-based funding system implemented under the Department of Cultural Affairs last year. The Speaker, in consultation with her colleagues, will establish funding priorities, and groups will compete within those areas in a process overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services. The criteria set will delineate the specific types of groups and the uses for the funding. For example, one RFP could be targeted at alleviating hunger with funding to small, community-based organizations working in high poverty areas.

The Mayor’s Office of Contract Services will assist in assuring that the RFP’s reflect the areas and criteria set forth by the Speaker and the Council. The RFP process will be structured in a way that will help smaller organizations meet the new requirements, in order to ensure they are not shut out of the process.

Establishment of Independent Compliance Officer
The Speaker announced the creation of an Independent Compliance Office whose responsibilities will include ensuring that the Council adheres to all procurement rules, charter mandates and Comptroller directives. Additionally, this office will assist in developing best practices and heightened local initiative review. The Compliance Officer will report to the Speaker and General Counsel. The Speaker called for a change to the Charter to make the position permanent and independent, set at a four-year term to overlap Speaker terms and only removable for cause.

Strengthening Requirements for Local Initiatives
Local initiatives will now be subjected to a more thorough review and certification process to be developed in consultation with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office. Under this new process, there will be a significant increase in the requirements for any community organization to receive funding through local initiatives, including:

Expanding the review process for groups that receive funding, ensuring the Council more effectively monitors the allocated funds;
Moving up deadlines to eliminate last minute budget add-ons; and
Requiring additional disclosures to eliminate possible conflicts of interest.

Searchable Database of All Funding Requests
In a further effort to increase transparency, the Council will create an online searchable database, modeled after the Attorney General’s Project Sunlight Initiative, containing all applications from any organization that applies for funding from the Council. The database will be updated within ten business days of adoption of any budget allocation. Links on the Council’s database and the City Clerk’s lobbying database will make it easier for the public to cross-reference information on funding with lobbying and client registration information.

Finally, the Council will release data on Council funded initiatives and programs (Schedule C) prior to budget adoptions, at least 24 hours before the Council votes on the budget. This step will ensure a more public review of all funding allocations.

“The reforms to the discretionary funding process as announced today by Speaker Quinn are solid steps towards giving the budget process further transparency,” said Finance Committee Chair David Weprin.

The Rules Reform Working Group, chaired by Council Members Yassky and Garodnick, will draft proposed rules changes that reflect the reforms announced today. Those changes will then be referred to the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections, Chaired by Council Member Diana Reyna. After review by the Committee and full Council, the rules changes will be formally codified.

Council Member David Yassky stated, “I’m proud to stand with Speaker Quinn to announce these bold reforms. This package will bring more transparency to the budget process than any legislation in the last two decades.”

“This is the right moment to make some constructive reforms in the Council's budget process,” said Council Member Dan Garodnick. “We need to shine the sunlight on the Council’s budget process and give New Yorkers confidence in where their money is going and how it is being spent.”

“This is an important beginning that will allow for a more inclusive process of serving all communities in the City,” said Majority Whip Inez Dickens.

Speaker Quinn has made reforming the budget process one of the hallmarks of her agenda and has taken a number of significant steps toward creating a more open and responsive budget process. Over the last two years, the Speaker has effectively worked to provide more detailed spending information for City agencies, and publicly list sponsoring Council Members for local initiatives. The Speaker negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the Corporation Counsel to increase accountability and transparency on local initiatives funded with Council Member discretionary funding.

Last year, the Speaker implemented a new process for systematically evaluating Council initiatives to ensure funding is directed where it is most needed, and has also proposed connecting spending to the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) to further help guide priorities and funding levels. Additionally, the Council has successfully base-lined funding for a number of citywide services, a process that limits the threat of drastic budget cuts to vital city services like city libraries or trash pickup.

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