\u201cGood afternoon Chairman DeFrancisco, Chairman Farrell, and members of the Finance and Ways and Means Committees. I am Melissa Mark-Viverito, and I am the Speaker of the New York City Council where I also represent East Harlem and the Bronx. <\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Cuomo\u2019s Executive Budget for State Fiscal Year 2014-2015 contains several elements that we at the New York City Council welcome, such as the renter\u2019s tax credit \u2013 something that is sorely needed in New York City, where 70% of residents are renters and half of them pay more than one-third of their income in rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge your support for this, and of course, we hope that you will make again this year many of the important spending restorations that you made last year \u2013 to the Youth Development Program (YDP) and Runaway Homeless Youth, to the CUNY ASAP program, and to CUNY\u2019s base operating aid, to name a few.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also hope that the $81.5 million that the general fund will receive from the JPMorgan settlement reached by Attorney General Schneiderman will be used to supplement \u2013 not supplant \u2013 funding for housing programs, including programs that will benefit City residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a few areas where we have some concerns, which we\u2019ll of course be discussing with you in the coming weeks. There are two in particular that I would like to highlight today. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet me start with the Homeless Housing and Assistance Program, which in the Governor\u2019s budget would more than double, to $63 million. This is terrific.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the Article VII Aid to Local Governments bill expressly prohibits using homeless housing funding to provide rental assistance to persons leaving shelter without a plan approved by the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA). The homeless shelter population in our city has risen 70% in the last decade, and the previous administration\u2019s approach to the problem of homelessness failed. We believe that rental assistance is the best, most cost-effective tool we have to help families living in shelter achieve stable, permanent housing \u2013 certainly more cost-effective than warehousing families and children in homeless shelters. We hope that you and the Governor will work together with us in the City to craft a rental-assistance program that will help us finally begin to address the crisis of homelessness in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondly \u2013 We of course particularly welcome the Governor\u2019s commitment to universal full-day pre-kindergarten and after-school. The importance of early childhood education to future success in school, career, and life, is now widely acknowledged in countless studies and has been born out in practice in communities across the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular, it is so critically important to give disadvantaged, low-income, and minority students access to the same kind of quality early education opportunities that their more fortunate counterparts have, in order to help close the widening achievement gap between poor and non-poor students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, Universal Pre-K will help level the playing field for thousands of New York\u2019s children who otherwise could be left behind. The Governor has acknowledged this, and we are happy he\u2019s invested in the issue. Where we part company with Governor Cuomo is on the question of funding. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe agree with Mayor de Blasio on the need for a dedicated local funding stream to fully support these programs in the City. In our view, no program is more critical to expand right away than Universal Pre-K. The Governor\u2019s proposal ramps up too slowly, starting at only $100 million, not all of which of course will go to New York City. But by our estimate, it will cost us as much as $300 million annually to make pre-k truly universal, just in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be clear, however – we are not in any way rejecting or demeaning what the Governor has put on the table \u2013 but we want to fulfill this promise to our City\u2019s working families and children as soon and as fully as possible. We think the best way to accomplish that is through the very modest tax increase on the well-to-do that the Mayor has proposed. And we think our own recent experience demonstrates that this modest increase will have little or no impact on the City\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, in 8 out of the last 20 years, the City\u2019s top marginal income tax rate has been higher than what Mayor de Blasio is proposing \u2013 and by the way, kicked in at much lower income levels \u2013 and we did not see taxpayers or businesses abandoning the City.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have the precedent of a temporary increase in the top marginal rate in order to meet a particularly acute need \u2013 namely the Safe Streets\/Safe City program. We think this experience shows that the well-to-do, who have thrived in New York City, are willing to pay a little more to ensure that the City as a whole may thrive as well. Today, UPK is that acute need.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd finally, we believe that this is a local home rule matter. Last year the legislature granted sales tax increases to four counties, all at the counties\u2019 request. We are only asking for the same right \u2013 to tax ourselves \u2013 nowhere else \u2013 to decide as a City what our budget priorities should be and how we meet them. New York City deserves that.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur arguments here today apply equally to after-school programming, which will cost over $200 million annually to expand in New York City. The governor\u2019s proposal doesn\u2019t start funding until next fiscal year \u2013 2015-2016 \u2013 and relies on casino revenues that are insufficient and frankly, speculative.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to conclude today with a plea for fairness. In numerous ways, State budgets over the last several years have been balanced on the back of New York City. Three prominent examples include the broken promise of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the elimination of AIM aid to New York City, and the cessation of funding for State-sponsored NYCHA developments. Together, these actions have cost the City as much as $4 billion or more annually in State aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a basic matter of fairness, this cannot continue. The City\u2019s economy generates 48% of all State tax revenues, according to a Rockefeller Institute study, but only receives 40% of total State spending in return. We\u2019re not saying we should get back exactly what we send to Albany \u2013 merely that, as times improve, New York City deserves a fairer shake in the State budget than it has received recently. <\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for your time and attention today, and I\u2019d be happy to answer any questions you may have.\u201d<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cGood afternoon Chairman DeFrancisco, Chairman Farrell, and members of the Finance and Ways and Means Committees. I am Melissa Mark-Viverito, and I am the Speaker of the New York City Council where I also represent East Harlem and the Bronx. <\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Cuomo\u2019s Executive Budget for State Fiscal Year 2014-2015 contains several elements that we at the New York City Council welcome, such as the renter\u2019s tax credit \u2013 something that is sorely needed in New York City, where 70% of residents are renters and half of them pay more than one-third of their income in rent.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n