TESTIMONY
Dawn M. Pinnock, Commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, on the Fiscal Year 2025 Proposed Budget
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6 min
Dawn M. Pinnock discusses the Department of Citywide Administrative Services' (DCAS) proposed budget for fiscal year 2025, emphasizing the agency's achievements and future plans.
- DCAS aims to enhance city government operations for all New Yorkers, focusing on public safety, workforce restoration, and energy reduction.
- The proposed budget supports fleet modernization, including increasing the electric fleet and expanding charging infrastructure, and investing in energy conservation and green energy projects.
- Pinnock outlines budget allocations for utilities, real estate, capital projects, and initiatives for achieving the city's climate goals.
- The testimony also covers efforts to make civil service more equitable and highlights the significant revenue and savings generated by DCAS.
- The preliminary budget for fiscal year 2025 totals $764,000,000, which includes substantial investments in energy conservation and green energy, as well as capital construction for city offices.
Dawn M. Pinnock
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My name is Dawn Pinoc, and I proudly serve as the department as the commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, commonly known as Decast.
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I'm accompanied by Jacqueline Jacobs, our assistant commissioner for financial and business management division and members of my leadership team.
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I'm pleased to be here to discuss the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025.
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At Decast, our mission is to make city government work for all New Yorkers, and it remains at the 4 front of everything we do.
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I would like to start by briefly looking back and providing a few updates about Decast's work since our agency testified before your committee last year.
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We have doubled down on public safety, namely street safety.
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We expanded our intelligence speed assistance pilot, which prevents operators from exceeding the local speed limit.
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To more than 300 vehicles, including 50 school buses, and have reduced the municipal fleet by 1083 vehicles, exceeding our target by 26%.
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Our roads are safer with a significant decrease in heartbreaking incidents, a reduction in reported crashes, and a compliance rate of over 90% with local speed limits among our fleet operators.
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Beyond the strides we made in fleet safety, we also led and activated a multipronged strategy to help restore and fortify the city's workforce.
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We launched the city's 1st ever vacancy sprint to bridge the municipal vacancy gap.
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Between February August, we hosted 16 events and communities all around New York City.
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With support from the council and labor, the hiring halls were resounding success.
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Yielding more than 2200 same day job offers for critical government roles.
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And we're actively reviewing the city's minimal qualification requirements for entry level titles, a major step in our efforts to make civil service more equitable and accessible.
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Turning our gaze forward.
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We're setting our sights on furthering our work cultivate a city government that delivers equity access and fortifies communities.
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With lingering impacts of COVID 19 pandemic, ambient doing supply chain and contractor disruptions have followed.
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We're working hard to get back on track to meet our 40% energy reduction commitments.
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We are installing an additional 30 megawatts of solar generating capacity up to 10 megawatts of large scale battery storage to power city operations.
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And we have over 50 megawatts of capacity contracted for development, some of which we expect to come online this year.
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Part and parcel to our work of grading our buildings in the coming year, we are also laser focused on modernizing our fleet.
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This work includes growing our electric fleet, operation to over 5000 vehicles, expanding our charging infrastructure by 75% and reducing carbon emissions with the use of alternative fuels, including our large scale adoption of renewable diesel.
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Currently, we have an overall budget of 2,000,000,000, which is inclusive of all funding sources.
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With 981,000,000 of that spent on city wide utilities, including heating, lighting, and power.
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These are fixed costs based on forecasted energy usage and utility rate.
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The good news is that Decast is working every day both internally and with our sister agencies through multiple programs to reduce energy use.
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To date, I'm proud to say that this work has generated more than 126,000,000 in energy savings.
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Beyond providing utilities charging agencies.
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We are also tasked with identifying physical spaces for city agencies and other public entities to meet their operational needs.
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When a need arises and city owned space is not available or feasible, our real estate team identifies, negotiates leases on behalf of the city.
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Our overall budget 162,000,000 is dedicated to these costs associated with multi tenanted lease sites.
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In addition to these expenses, we have also invested and extensive maintenance and repair work across our portfolio of city managed buildings.
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To support these efforts in the current year, our budget includes 13,700,000 for facade projects for various buildings in our portfolio, including 10,200,000 recently added for 8811 Seth Van Boulevard, 26 Central Avenue, and 253 Broadway.
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It also includes 3,800,000 recently added to support energy roof and other interior repairs.
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17,000,000 to support the city's effort to transition to an all electric fleet and 112,000,000 to achieve the 1 city climate goals as outlined in executive order 89, and local law 97.
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In addition to these programs, every year, DC has generated a significant amount of revenue on the city's behalf.
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In fiscal year 2425, we anticipate generating 75,800,000 and 66,900,000 respectively.
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The revenue is primarily due to 3 areas.
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41,000,000 in private rentals to city owned properties, 12,700,000 for the sale of surplus vehicles and other city owned equipment, and 4,800,000 from applicant filing fees for civil service exams.
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On the savings front, forecasts like other city agencies has participated in budget reduction initiatives to help eliminate budget gaps and prepare for any potential budgeting constraints.
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These initiatives include OTPS savings totaling 7 $17,700,000 in fiscal year 24, and $15,900,000 in fiscal year 25.
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Due to a 15,000,000 Due to a 15,000,000,000 reduction, I'm sorry, I I'm almost done.
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In the fleet EV purchasing program, OTPS efficiencies across CCaaS program offices, 17.8 in fiscal year 24,000,000 in fiscal year 25 of additional revenue due to increases in rents energy initiative programs and civil service exam fees.
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The preliminary budget reflects an updated 5 year plan of 3,300,000,000 from fiscal year 24 through 28 for projects managed by Decast.
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This includes maintenance and enhancements to Decast facilities and renovation of leased spaces.
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Preliminary budget for fiscal year 25 is 764,000,000 and includes 434,500,000 for energy conservation and green energy projects.
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306,500,000 to support our capital construction program, the city offices, 20,900,000 for information technology system upgrades, and lastly, 2 million for fleet electric vacation work.
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In conclusion, I look forward to working with each of you.
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Wanna congratulate you, Chairrestaurant on your first hearing.
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Look forward to advancing the mission of my agency and the support, the critical work that we do to keep our city thriving.
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With that, I would be happy to answer any of the council's questions.