New York City’s economy may be improving, but the rough times aren’t completely in the past either, according to City Comptroller John Liu.
“We have self-indicators that are cause for optimism,” said Liu, who became Comptroller on January 1, while discussing a wide-range of topics with Queens reporters on Thursday, August 5. “Some of the economic indicators are starting to become positive after two years of declines, but nonetheless we still have some difficult challenges.”
During the meeting at his downtown office, Liu spoke about how the unemployment rate in the city was decreasing with the latest figures coming in at 9.5 percent, which is still too many people out of work, he said.
“It speaks to the need to have a long-term economic plan and specifically to create jobs because that’s ultimately what we need to do to get us out of these very difficult economic times,” Liu said.
One of the initiatives Liu spoke about was the launch of Checkbook NYC, which started on July 1. Checkbook NYC is an easy-to-use online database of the city’s expenditures allowing users to search and download by agency, vendor/payee name, purpose and amount – giving residents the opportunity to track where the city is spending its money. In 2010 alone, more than $40 billion in transactions have already been recorded.
“It not only allows people to look at the expenditures, but the real objective I have is by making sure that anybody can see what these expenditures are it makes all of us in government responsible for spending the tax payers money, myself included, that much more careful and judicious in how we actually spend the tax payer money,” Liu said.
With recent State Comptroller report detailing sky-high MTA overtime payments and another report saying the city may have underestimated the overtime payments for its uniformed officers by $140 million, Liu said
“Better budgeting is one issue, but better management is the real issue here,” Liu said.
“This is an issue that spans almost every agency in the city,” he continued.
In addition, Liu spoke about increasing work opportunity to minority and women owned businesses and looking closely at the contracting process, specifically mentioning the Department of Education contracts, as some of the initiatives his office is currently working on.
“My overall theme is saving money for taxpayers, and we need that more than ever,” Liu said.
