TESTIMONY
Ana Champeny on Risks to New York City's Fiscal Health and Recommendations for Budget Management
6:14:08
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132 sec
Ana Champeny of the Citizens Budget Commission testifies on the city's fiscal challenges and offers budget management recommendations.
- Champeny addresses chronic under-budgeting and the fiscal cliff resulting from funding recurring programs on an annual basis.
- She warns that the city's fiscal health is at risk due to costs of supporting migrants, asylum seekers, and the Financial Empowerment Programs (FEP) vouchers shortfall.
- Urges the City Council to ensure spending proposals are affordable and not to further destabilize the budget.
- Emphasizes the importance of data-driven prioritization and quality service delivery over blunt cost-saving measures.
Ana Champeny
6:14:08
Good afternoon, Chair Brandon and members of the City Council Finance Committee.
6:14:13
I am Anna Champine, Vice President for Research at the Citizens Budget Commission.
6:14:17
Chronic under budgeting and the more recent trend of funding recurring programs 1 year at a time, what we call the fiscal cliff, have grown to dangerous levels in recent years.
6:14:27
These along with the surge in cost to support migrants and asylum seekers put the city's fiscal health at significant risk despite an expanding economy.
6:14:36
Through its role in shaping the city's budget, the city council will partly determine whether the city's fiscal foundation is stable and therefore, whether the city can will be able to serve New Yorkers well.
6:14:48
We urge you to ensure that your proposals to add or modify spending are affordable and do not make the city budget even more fiscally precarious.
6:14:57
For example, we mean that funding required to support current level of the city FEP's vouchers whose costs are expected to exceed 800,000,000 this year, but are budgeted at approximately 150,000,000 next year.
6:15:10
Should be in the budget before adding or expanding other programs.
6:15:14
Adding programs when the current ones are not fully funded, yet expected to continue at unsupportable weight to our fiscal House of Cards.
6:15:23
CDC's analysis found that the preliminary budget present presented a balanced budget for fiscal years 2425.
6:15:32
However, proposed spending in fiscal year 25 is short by 3.6 $1,000,000,000 needed to continue the current level of services.
6:15:41
That is why we believe that it was ill advised to cancel the April 24.
6:15:45
Program to eliminate the gap.
6:15:47
Even if higher revenue projections prove accurate, which would be good news, the city may abruptly face funding shortfalls that require significant, sudden spending cuts that can harm programs more than restraining spending to affordable levels over time.
6:16:02
Prioritization based on data and efficiency and quality service delivery are hallmarks of the thoughtful, nuanced approach that is needed.
6:16:10
Blunt instruments such as blanket hiring freezes and across the board targets may achieve savings but too often come with unwarranted service reductions.
6:16:20
Thank you.