By Larry Penner
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to hire a “Director of Mayor’s Organizing” make no sense. City Hall already maintains a full-time Washington, D.C. lobbying office. The office staff already works with both Congress and mayors on issues of interest to the city. The National Conference of Mayors does the same. Mayor de Blasio’s justification of this position is based on his belief that the federal government is shortchanging the Big Apple and other cities when it comes to providing mass transit, housing and infrastructure funding. His position is flawed when you look at the facts.
Federal support for transportation has remained consistent and growing. It has actually increased over past decades. When a crisis occurred, be it 9/11 in 2001 or Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Washington was there for us. Additional billions in federal assistance above and beyond yearly formula allocations were provided. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided billions more. Most federal transportation grants require a 20 percent hard-cash local share. In many cases, Uncle Sam accepted toll credits instead of hard cash for the local share. This saved the MTA $1 billion in the previous 2010-2014 Five Year Capital Program.
The real question Mayor de Blasio and others miss is how the city managed the billions of discretionary dollars received in post 9/11 aid after 2001 along with the money received from the American Recovery Reinvestment Act in 2009 along with Sandy relief and recovery after 2012. All of these billions were above and beyond the billions in regular formula assistance received from Washington every year. The same also applies to billions in yearly assistance from Albany, along with billions in locally generated tax revenues.
Does the city submit grant applications on time for both formula and discretionary competitive-funding opportunities? Are current federal and state-funded programs being completed on time and within budget? Are funds being expended on a timely basis? Are there any unspent funds carried over year after year? Is there waste, fraud or abuse? Are all change orders for construction projects fair, reasonable and documented?
Have city Comptroller Scott Stringer and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli conducted audits of each respective municipal agency to see if the city is doing a good job managing current federal and state aid programs? Has City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, along with City Council Finance Committee Chairwoman Julissa Ferreras and NYC Council Transportation Committee Chairman Ydanis Rodriguez, conducted public hearings to do the same? What oversight have the city Office of Management and Budget and the city Independent Budget Office provided? Have either conducted any audits to see how municipal agencies are managing their respective current state and federal aid programs?
The city Departments of Transportation, Economic Development Corporation, Housing Preservation and Development along with the MTA have to submit quarterly milestone and financial progress reports with their respective federal agency counterparts who review and approve funding from Washington. They document the progress being made by the recipient of federal funding. The reports might make interesting reading for those who want to find out how both the city and the MTA are spending the billions from Washington.
Perhaps government at all levels needs to do a better job with the billions of dollars in taxpayer generated revenues already available, rather than pick the pockets of taxpayers for even more!
Larry Penner
Great Neck
