Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
QUESTION
What is the staffing and capacity of the lobbying bureau? How have recent budget constraints impacted its operations?
1:42:03
·
3 min
Michael McSweeney explains the current staffing of the lobbying bureau, which includes a deputy city clerk, deputy general counsel, chief investigator, investigator, and paralegal, among others.
- The bureau faces challenges in retaining staff and meeting headcount goals due to attrition and maternity leaves
- Recent budget constraints through the Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEGs) mandated by the mayor have prevented hiring new staff
- McSweeney desires additional resources and staff to handle increased lobbying activity but is constrained by the PEGs
- He expresses hope that the PEGs extended into future years can be addressed during the budget process
Lincoln Restler
1:42:03
Thank you very much.
1:42:04
I'd like to shift to the to the clerk and your team.
1:42:07
Thank you also for being thank you again for being with us today.
1:42:11
As I noted in my opening remarks, last year, lobbyists were paid $131,000,000, almost double what they were paid a decade ago.
1:42:21
Could you just remind us on exactly how many staff lobbying Burrow has overseeing this industry how has the staffing capacity of the lobbying bureau changed over the past decade?
1:42:32
And do you think given that we've seen a doubling in the amount of lobbying activity, Should the city clerk's lobbying bureau have doubled as well in that intervening time?
1:42:42
And then lastly, just on that, could you let us know if the recent pegs that you've been subject to by the mayor have impacted the lobbying bureaus operations.
1:45:25
We will do our best.
1:45:29
And focus on that as we enter into the budget negotiations.
Michael McSweeney
1:42:53
So we currently the lobbying bureau currently operates with Demarcastar, deputy city clerk.
1:42:59
She oversees the lobbying bureau our deputy general counsel, a chief investigator, an investigator, and a paralegal.
1:43:07
In addition, my general counsel, my deputy city clerk overseeing the marriage bureau and myself, you know, work we contribute to the work of the Okay.
1:43:22
We contribute to the work of the lobbying bureau together.
1:43:24
After local law, 120 9 of 2013, as I said before, we did hire a full time trainer to assist us with rolling out the amnesty period and doing the outreach for that.
1:43:38
And, unfortunately, that person departed, and we do need to fill that vacancy.
1:43:44
You know, before that, we we've had other, you know, we we've had a couple more investigators at one time, but we found that it's been very difficult for us to retain people, you know, for these tasks.
1:43:58
The people that are working that I have described are very hardworking people.
1:44:02
And we've been doing a lot of juggling to make sure that we carry out our mandates.
1:44:09
So Would we like to see the number of staff doubled, we would welcome any increase of resources that we could get.
1:44:18
Unfortunately, our pegs, as I mentioned before, have been substantial, and we're not even in compliance with our headcount.
1:44:27
Because we we we couldn't you know, when the pegs were given, we couldn't lay anybody off.
1:44:33
So, you know, things were done through on an nutrition basis.
1:44:37
But between the fact that we haven't met our attrition goals and we've had 3 people return for maternity leave who went on maternity leave prior to the the pegs were actually over a required head count.
1:44:50
And we have another the the the one other person who's still out on maternity leave contacted us recently and expressed that she would like to return earlier.
1:44:59
So, you know, there's with the pegs, you know, that are in place.
1:45:04
There's no way we can hire anyone new until we, you know, meet those goals.
1:45:09
So we would love to see I mean, it would be nice if if the pegs, you know, that that have been extended into the out years can be addressed during the budget.
1:45:21
I I would love to see that.
1:45:22
That would be, you know, huge for us.