QUESTION
What is the frequency and impact of audits on lobbying activities in New York City?
1:45:34
·
96 sec
Michael McSweeney, the City Clerk of New York City, explains the importance and effects of audits on lobbying activities. Audits help identify instances where lobbyists fail to provide required information like targets, property block and lot numbers for real estate or land use lobbying.
- Audits allow corrections and notifications to be sent to lobbyists regarding their responsibilities.
- Initially, there were 30 random audits per year after a 2006 law change.
- In 2012, the number of audits was increased to 51 annually.
- McSweeney advocates for further increasing the number of audits to enhance transparency.
Lincoln Restler
1:45:34
Could you just remind us How many audits are conducted each year?
1:45:38
How has that changed over time?
1:45:42
And my our review found that these audits generated between 50a130 findings that required actions annually Is that a high rate of findings?
1:45:55
What are the and I guess, do you think more audits would be beneficial to help identify more issues that exist within these lobbying reports?
Michael McSweeney
1:46:06
Yes.
1:46:06
We we do think more audits would be helpful.
1:46:10
The audits help us to find where lobbyists are not providing information about their targets.
1:46:15
They're not providing the proper they're not identifying the local blood.
1:46:21
They're not identifying the aboro block and lot number, which is required for any kind of real property or land use lobbying, and we make corrections to to these lobbyists.
1:46:33
And and and notify them that these are very important, you know, things that that that they're that they're required to do and often do not do.
1:46:42
So the the audits are very helpful.
1:46:44
When we first had the law changed, I think it was local law 15 of 2006 that incorporated the the order the random audit program.
1:46:55
We started with 30 audits, and then in 2012, we increased that number unilaterally to 40 51.
1:47:02
It's because and and and we definitely think it was worth raising the number, and, you know, we definitely should consider raising it again.