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Q&A
NYCEM's budget requests and financial needs
2:45:37
ยท
3 min
Chief Financial Officer Blanco provides a comprehensive overview of NYCEM's budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year. The requests address various needs, including offsetting federal funding reductions, structural deficits, and critical operational requirements.
- $2.9 million requested to offset reductions in federal Homeland Security funding
- $1.9 million for shifting additional positions off volatile federal grants
- $1.5 million for agency salary restructuring to ensure parity with other city agencies
- $3.3 million to address overall structural deficit and allow full staffing
- Additional requests for critical software, vehicle maintenance, and capital projects
Joann Ariola
2:45:37
Okay.
2:45:37
And is there in this fiscal year, what would you say is your projected budgetary ask?
Zachary Iscol
2:45:46
Specifically related to asylum seekers or overall?
Joann Ariola
2:45:49
No, no, overall.
Zachary Iscol
2:45:50
Chris, do you want to go into the numbers for our assets here?
Christopher Blanco
2:45:53
Sure.
2:45:53
So I can give you an overview of some of our primary requests for new needs.
2:45:58
All of these are really related to structural underfunding.
2:46:02
And so I'll break it down by PS, OT, PS, and capital needs.
2:46:06
So as alluded to in the commissioner's testimony, most of our needs are PS related.
2:46:12
Obviously we've gone through several rounds of PEGs as all agencies have due to the asylum seekers impact on the budget and other economic factors.
2:46:22
So I think number one, we're requesting $2,900,000 in the baseline to fund the reduction in To offset the federal reduction in funding.
2:46:35
As we've discussed, over the last five years we've seen about a 20% reduction in the overall allocation of Homeland Security funding to the city Of New York.
2:46:44
NISM has seen a much smaller reduction.
2:46:47
But as a result, we're scheduled to lose 10 heads beginning next fiscal year and looking to hope to sort of make that restored in the baseline.
2:46:56
Additionally, we're requesting an additional $1,900,000 in the baseline related to shifting additional heads off of the volatile federal grants given the bigger picture discussions around federal funding.
2:47:08
Also as mentioned in the testimony, we're looking at $1,500,000 in the baseline tied to reformulated agency salary restructure just to bring our staff in line with other city agencies and ensure parity across the city, as well as create more career pathways for folks since we're a non union agency.
2:47:31
And then also looking just at a $3,300,000 overall structural deficit.
2:47:36
And
Zachary Iscol
2:47:37
this
Christopher Blanco
2:47:37
is due again to various pegs that have happened over the years.
2:47:40
And essentially what that means is we don't have enough funding to hire up to our budgeted headcount.
2:47:47
So this funding would restore that to allow us to get to the full levels of staffing that we have in the budget.
Joann Ariola
2:47:55
What is your full budgeted headcount?
Christopher Blanco
2:47:57
We have two forty two heads across the entire agency.
2:48:02
As we mentioned, 160 of those are grant funded, so math on that is about 82 city funds.
Joann Ariola
2:48:09
Gotcha.
2:48:10
Okay, thank you.
Christopher Blanco
2:48:11
And then just OTPS quickly, 477,000 for critical software and license needs across the city.
2:48:18
Dollars 300,000 for vehicle maintenance.
2:48:21
Our entire vehicle budget and equipment maintenance budget was zeroed out through previous pegs and we've been self funding that with surpluses elsewhere.
2:48:31
And then finally on the capital side we put in a $9,100,000 request to upgrade our radio systems just due to sort of outdated nature of things and having to upgrade those systems to be in line with NYPD's new requirements around encryption.
2:48:45
We've gotten verbal commitment from OMB on that one.
2:48:48
So we're currently working through with Decas who funds our capital projects.
2:48:55
And then finally a $2,000,000 ask to build out the Queensborough office.
2:49:00
We received approximately $1,000,000 grant from Congressman Swazi to build a site in Fort Totten Park in Queens.
Joann Ariola
2:49:08
Oh, nice.
2:49:09
Great.
2:49:10
Okay, anything that you need from us, from me to be helpful to get those asks realized, please don't hesitate to loop us in.
Zachary Iscol
2:49:21
We will for sure.