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Q&A
Funding assessment for Local Laws 91 and 92
2:48:13
ยท
4 min
Council Member Williams inquires about the sufficiency of funding for Local Laws 91 and 92, and Linda Tigani provides an assessment of current and potential future funding needs.
- Current funding is sufficient to start the projects, but additional funds may be needed
- For truth healing reconciliation, a better understanding of costs will be available by June
- For reparations study, $1 million in the first year is sufficient, but more funds may be needed in subsequent years
Nantasha Williams
2:48:13
Thank you.
2:48:14
In the November plan released in 2024 including $1,000,000 in fiscal twenty twenty six and 505 hundred thousand in fiscal twenty twenty seven for the implementation of local law 91, It also included 1,000,000 in fiscal twenty twenty six and 1,300,000.0 in fiscal twenty twenty seven for local law 92.
2:48:35
Do you believe this funding will be sufficient to carry out the mandates?
2:48:39
If not, how much additional funding will be needed to fulfill the mandates?
Linda Tigani
2:48:44
That's a great question.
2:48:45
I think for truth healing reconciliation, the 1,500,000.0 is sufficient to support community organizations participation in creating a plan.
2:48:57
We are learning more about the truth telling aspect of Local Law 91, and we are currently seeking out more accurate numbers to get a better understanding of how much is it gonna cost to have more video and audio support for truth telling.
2:49:16
This is what community is asking for.
2:49:19
Also, the latest recommendation was to bring in sort of historians or researchers into the room when people are telling their truths so that when a family member says, my grandmother, my great grandmother, like, lost her house, someone the city took it from her, we don't know why.
2:49:39
We actually in that situation would need a historian or an archivist to better understand that full picture.
2:49:46
People are gonna be talking about trauma.
2:49:48
They're not gonna be bringing paperwork all of the time.
2:49:51
And so pairing up someone who takes oral history for a living, someone who wants to tell their story, and an archivist or historian is actually a really powerful combination to get a fuller picture.
2:50:06
However, these recommendations just came to us and we're still in the process of pricing them out.
2:50:10
So we will likely be coming back asking for more funds.
Nantasha Williams
2:50:16
When do you think you'll be done with your assessment on the additional funds needed?
Linda Tigani
2:50:21
For truth healing and reconciliation, I will have a better understanding likely by June at the very latest.
2:50:29
I'm still talking to a bunch of groups.
2:50:31
But for reparations, which was also one of your questions, I do think that $1,000,000 to start the project is exactly what we need.
2:50:41
This is this amount was determined using industry standard salaries for historians around a hundred, a hundred and 20 7 thousand dollars a year.
2:50:54
We do expect that this is gonna be a large team.
2:50:57
We're talking about studying over 45 the history of over 45 city agencies and the birth of New York City government and its relationship and growth for rules and policies, procedures, and investments that not only allowed for chattel slavery to continue, for Jim Crow to be born and to be enshrined in our New York City government, but also that there are several practices in the private industry that were allowed by government, and so we need a a very robust team.
2:51:30
So we do expect that a million dollars in the first year is sufficient.
2:51:35
Now the second year and what I've communicated to OMB reparations is a multiyear project.
2:51:41
We are expect that 1,300,000.0 in the second year, we will have a better understanding of how much more history and work needs to get done.
2:51:50
We are committed to filing the reports on time and ensuring that community is getting updates, but I am expecting that we will need additional funds to do deeper dives in some of our longer standing agencies like the health department that's been around for a hundred years.
2:52:07
We may need a full team for them.
2:52:09
We won't know or have a full assessment until we have the RFP completed and a vendor on board so that we can sit down and talk through how many staff they have, how many interns they have, and what are the particular areas of harm or areas of government that we need a deep dive on.