QUESTION
Is there a correlation between headcount reductions and the decline in PMMR indicators?
4:25:13
·
106 sec
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander confirms a correlation between headcount reductions and declines in some Preliminary Mayor's Management Report (PMMR) indicators.
- Lander highlights the Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) agency as a case where significant headcount reductions have impacted operations.
- The reduction in staff at HPD during the pandemic led to increased wait times for housing units, from 3 months to up to 9 months for homeless families.
- Despite challenges, some agencies, like the Department of Sanitation, have deployed creative strategies to manage headcount effectively.
- Lander points out the need for new training and technology to address the loss of experienced personnel.
Justin L. Brannan
4:25:13
I got one last question about the preliminary measures management report.
4:25:20
Do you believe there's a correlation between the headcount reductions and the decline in some of the PMMR indicators?
Brad Lander
4:25:28
Yes.
4:25:28
You know, we looked at a couple of agencies where we have concerns like that.
4:25:33
You know, we put this report out just a couple of weeks ago looking specifically at HPD.
4:25:37
Now we give the agency there some credit.
4:25:39
They took very large reductions during the pandemic as people left.
4:25:44
And then they were able to do pretty significant hiring back up.
4:25:47
Now they faced new challenges because they had lost a lot of people that had been there for years, and so they've got a whole set of training needs.
4:25:54
A whole new set of technology needs.
4:25:56
But that's a place where you're seeing a bunch of barriers that really need to be addressed on the one that's truck out stuck out to me.
4:26:03
Most was the wait time to move people into a unit even after that unit is ready.
4:26:09
I don't have the the that's that right to hand, but it had been in about 3 months, and that it ballooned to 6 months, and I think 8 or 9 months for units for homeless families, And that's just processing time.
4:26:24
That's, you know, if you're missing a few staff in that key unit or you had to, you know, you lost some people with real experience, And now you've got families who are waiting for that apartment desperately, and we're making them take a couple of months longer.
4:26:38
So We did see some agencies that I think are having effective creative strategies, you know, identify Department of Sanitation here that has found some creative ways to kind of manage its headcount and keep moving forward.
4:26:52
But we did identify a number of places that we think the PMMR shows that impact of the hiring freeze certificates.