AGENCY TESTIMONY
Costs and uncertainties related to asylum seekers
0:07:25
·
117 sec
Comptroller Lander discusses the costs associated with providing services to asylum seekers, highlighting the uncertainties and potential fiscal risks involved. He notes that while current projections are lower than budgeted, there are many unknown factors that could affect future costs.
- Projected costs for FY25 are $1.3 billion lower than budgeted, based on current trends
- Uncertainties include future border crossings, arrivals, and changes in city policies
- Concerns about overuse of emergency procurement and lack of cost controls
- Potential fiscal risk in FY26-27 due to budgeted state aid that is not in the state budget
Brad Lander
0:07:25
Beyond those more predictable areas, like CitiFAPs, Carter cases, where we've got trends and we can understand what we know is very likely to be spent, there are 3 big areas of just greater uncertainty, the cost of providing services to asylum seekers, the cost of implementing the state's class size mandate, and the cost of expansion of rental assistance.
0:07:48
My office expects that the costs associated with asylum seekers will be lower than budget in an f y 25 by 1,300,000,000 mainly due to lower projections of household and shelter, extending the trend, which is now relatively stable over the last few months.
0:08:06
But the projection is subject to an unusual degree of uncertainty due to many, so many things we don't know.
0:08:11
The unknown trajectory of border crossings and arrivals, especially given the uncertainty of the federal election, as well as changes in city policies, including the haphazard implementation of shelter time limits, which lacks the case management services or even just the simple outcomes tracking that are really necessary for us to have a clear handle on what's actually going on.
0:08:34
And expenses continue to be unnecessarily high because of the overuse of emergency procurement without adequate cost controls in staffing, in many of our emergency contracts as my office has repeatedly, documented on the slow pivot to competitive procurement.
0:08:50
We were pleased with the cancellation and the ending of the .go contract and a commitment to move to real RFPs with cost competition, but we have not yet seen that.
0:09:01
In f y 26 27, though, the city is budgeting for $1,000,000,000 of annual state aid that is not in the state budget, so that is a fiscal risk.
0:09:13
And in f y 28, the financial plan does not include any expenses for asylum seekers, while it's quite likely to continue, although that is 3 years out.
