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AGENCY TESTIMONY
Recommendations for priority investments in city services
4:03:25
ยท
175 sec
Comptroller Lander outlines several areas where he recommends the city council increase resources to protect vulnerable New Yorkers and maintain essential services. These recommendations span various sectors and programs.
- Lander suggests increased funding for programs protecting immigrant families and transgender New Yorkers.
- He recommends additional resources for enforcing workers' rights through various city agencies.
- The Comptroller advocates for expanding childcare services, including delivering on the promise of 3K for every child and supporting pay parity for childcare workers.
- Other priority areas include refunding CUNY initiatives, expanding programs for people with mental illness experiencing homelessness, and addressing staffing shortages in mental health agencies.
Brad Lander
4:03:25
And so, we've identified a few areas where we think it's critical for the council to increase resources.
4:03:32
No parent or child in this city should live in fear of family separation, so we identify some programs the council has supported in the past that could get additional resources in this budget to protect immigrant families.
4:03:45
The same is true for transgender New Yorkers and the trans equity fund that the council has supported in the past.
4:03:52
Workers are not going to be protected by the National Labor Relations Board in the Trump era, and some additional resources that the Commission on Human Rights, DCWP, and the Controllers Bureau of Labor Law use to enforce and protect workers' rights would be wise as well.
4:04:10
Shoring up and advancing childcare work makes a lot of sense right now as families continue to be crushed under the high cost of living in New York City.
4:04:20
And so delivering on the promise of not just a pre k seat, but a three k seat for every child, and supporting the workers who deliver that work with the pay parity that they were promised would also be a strong role for the council to play.
4:04:37
I loved at the speaker's State of the City yesterday hearing about CUNY Reconnect and some of the other initiatives that support those CUNY students who are just an amazing and resilient resource, so it's worth remembering that under this administration, CUNY has seen $95,000,000 of baseline cuts since the start of the administration.
4:04:57
Refunding CUNY Reconnect and the Council initiatives is great.
4:05:00
Restoring that 95,000,000,000 that was cut by the Adams administration would also be a very good goal for this year.
4:05:09
Another issue I hear a lot about from New Yorkers is the challenge of folks with mental illness sleeping on the streets and subways of our city.
4:05:17
After audits of the homeless sweeps and IMT program, my office put out a plan for ending street homelessness for people with serious mental illness, expanding on a housing first program that a pilot that the administration actually supported, but now is nowhere to be seen, as well as additional resources for some secure treatment beds that DOC and H and H are operating, and additional mental health outreach, but especially for the housing and services that gets people off the streets is a critical investment at this time.
4:05:52
Ultimately, it is people, fellow New Yorkers, who provide the care that people with mental illness need to get off the streets, but unfortunately staffing shortages across our mental health agencies is a problem there as well.
4:06:07
And I noticed yesterday also that one of the largest applause lines in this speech, and I heard it came up again this morning as well, is the crisis in just getting our nonprofit human service providers paid on time.