QUESTION
How does NYC's debt capacity impact capital project prioritization, and what challenges are faced due to budget constraints?
1:10:46
·
3 min
NYC's limited debt capacity demands prioritization, leading to the pausing of long-standing projects and the funding of new ones, as explained by Budget Director Jacques Jiha.
- Due to NYC's debt capacity challenges, essential projects such as SCA and Bobbi's job are prioritized.
- Long-standing projects are paused despite years in the pipeline, highlighting prioritization issues.
- The need to maintain funding for specific projects until 2027 consumes significant budget capacity.
- The administration focuses on allocating resources to mandated projects and trying to create room for additional needs within tight constraints.
- Communication and strategic planning regarding capital project prioritization and funding are crucial amidst these budgetary challenges.
Diana Ayala
1:10:46
Thank you, and good morning.
1:10:48
I think it's still morning.
1:10:51
I have a number of questions, but before I got into those questions, I I wanted to kinda go back a little bit on the capital budget.
1:11:00
Because I've in the I I run I want trying to get a sense of, like, where we are in regards to our debt capacity and what we should be expecting in the next few months we've received.
1:11:15
I know that I've received, and I I I'm sure a couple of of other members have as well.
1:11:21
Calls from different city agencies alerting us that projects that have been funded for a number of years will now be put on pause.
1:11:32
Because of budget cuts.
1:11:36
During the same time frame, we're also getting calls saying, oh, well, good on the the good news is that the admin is also funding, you know, new projects here, here, and here.
1:11:48
And so that doesn't really balance out for me because if we're if we don't have the the the budget capacity to fund, projects have been on the pie line for a substantial amount of years than and I get it.
1:12:02
We have a new administration.
1:12:04
That administration has their own priorities, but then how does that compare to the consummative priorities that have been laid out for for years.
1:12:13
I mean, I have projects that were put on pause have been one of them, I think, has been on has been in the pipeline for 10 years.
Jacques Jiha
1:12:22
Yeah.
1:12:24
As I said it to you, we have a major challenge in front of us, which is the debt capacity.
1:12:33
That we have.
1:12:34
This is where.
Diana Ayala
1:12:35
Okay.
Jacques Jiha
1:12:35
The active telling folks, this is where we are problems.
1:12:39
And what makes it even worse to be honest with you.
1:12:42
I'm gonna be honest with you.
1:12:43
I'm gonna be honest with you here, is the fact that even though we know we're not gonna spend the money for the board base share by 2027.
1:12:54
We have to keep it there.
1:12:56
Okay?
1:12:57
We know the cons we for a with the timeline that that was created for the World Beach Jail was prior to COVID.
1:13:06
We put the capital plan on a pause for a year and a half, nothing decrease.
1:13:11
But yet, we expect the symptom line.
1:13:15
To continue when there was a pause, okay, in the entire capital program for 8a half.
1:13:21
So we know it's not gonna happen by 2027, but yet we have to keep the funding.
1:13:29
Okay?
1:13:29
Same timeline up to 2027.
1:13:31
So we cannot move that funding beyond 2027.
1:13:35
So therefore, that funding is consuming all the capacity that we have.
1:13:40
So therefore, we have very little left, so therefore, we have to move everything in the back.
1:13:46
I Okay.
1:13:47
Because of the funding challenge that we have offline.
1:13:50
So it's when I hear people say, oh, we we don't have a lot of things and new things added to the capital plan.
1:13:58
Okay?
1:13:59
As I said, we are struggling to try to maintain 3 things.
1:14:03
Okay?
1:14:04
SCA, Bobbi's job at the additional resources for the Bobbi's job, and for the VQA.
1:14:10
So we're not talking about new things.
1:14:13
Some of 2 of these things are mandated, SCA, and, you know, the World visa.
1:14:18
So this is where we are.
1:14:20
It's not like, you know, we have capital that we're spending left in the right.
1:14:24
No.
1:14:24
We don't.
1:14:25
What we're trying to do right now is a job of trying to create whom wherever we can, just basically to try to accommodate those things.