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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.

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.

Lincoln Restler

1:45:25

We will do our best.

1:45:29

And focus on that as we enter into the budget negotiations.

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