Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Heather Lubov, Executive Director of City Parks Foundation, on NYC Parks Budget
3:08:30
ยท
3 min
Heather Lubov, Executive Director of City Parks Foundation, expresses deep concern over the FY26 budget for NYC parks, which will result in significant job losses and understaffing. She urges the council to restore funding to maintain basic services and support various park initiatives.
- Calls for an allocation of $79.7 million in the FY26 budget to restore baseline and renew initiatives within NYC parks
- Highlights the critical role of City Parks Foundation in providing free programming, mobilizing volunteers, and administering funds for local green spaces
- Emphasizes the need to lift the ban on external hiring and warns that cuts to forestry and natural areas positions jeopardize the urban forest plan's goals
Heather Lubov
3:08:30
Okay.
3:08:30
Good afternoon, chairman Krishnan.
3:08:33
I'm Heather Lubov from City Parks Foundation, and I'm here to express my severe dismay over the f y twenty six budget for parks, which has which will result in the loss of almost 800 jobs, leaving our parks critically understaffed and struggling to maintain even the most basic services.
3:08:52
Particularly at a time when federal funding for the city is highly precarious, I urge the council to restore baseline and renew initiatives within NYC parks through an allocation of 79,700,000.0 in the f y twenty six budget.
3:09:06
Our parks are not luxuries.
3:09:08
They are the backbone of our communities, but they are failing behind, even the agency's own standards.
3:09:15
More than 60 of parks properties have a vital park score lower than 95, and that's the department's own standard.
3:09:23
This is not a minor issue.
3:09:24
This is a crisis.
3:09:26
At City Parks Foundation, we're doing everything we can to address some of those gaps by providing free programming like summer state and the puppet mobile, sports and fitness classes, environmental education programs.
3:09:38
We're staffing and funding the New York City Parks and Open Space Partners Coalition, which some people have spoken about, to build the capacity of the nonprofit park stewards that help support the parks and contribute nearly 200,000,000 in private budget relief for agency.
3:09:56
Perhaps most relevant, as half of the public private partnership collaboration that is Partnerships for Parks, we mobilize more than 32,000 volunteers and offer them training, coaching, event planning, permit support, and other hand holding services to ensure that those volunteers are able to care for local green spaces each year with the least amount of friction.
3:10:18
We also fundraise and administer the New York City Green Fund to distribute more than $2,000,000 in private funds annually to volunteer groups around the city.
3:10:27
And while we would encourage volunteerism no matter what, it's essential now when the agency is severely underfunded.
3:10:35
Eleven Partnerships for Parks team members do this work and are funded directly by the council's Parks Equity Initiative, so we're asking that this highly cost effective initiative be expanded to $1,000,000 to ensure that we can continue.
3:10:49
The commissioner mentioned the hiring slowdown, but part of that is that there's currently a freeze on the hiring of external candidates.
3:10:56
We have lost countless partnerships for Park staff recently to other agency departments and vice versa, so it's a merry -go-round of staff moving between programs with absolutely no growth.
3:11:08
In practice, this means that our volunteers are continually working with different staff and there's no stability to build relationships.
3:11:15
The ban on external hiring must be lifted.
3:11:18
And finally, as you've heard, we took on the role of fiscal sponsor for the private funds that are supporting the development of the first ever urban forest plan, and we're conducting the public engagement for the the plan's development.
3:11:31
And the hope, of course, is that we can use the plan to increase our tree canopy to 30%.
3:11:37
But with the loss of all those forestry and natural areas positions, there is no way that the mayor's office can prepare a plan with such lofty goals and keep those cuts in place, the plan is doomed to fail before it's even been published.
3:11:51
Restoring the parks workforce and its vital programs is the only way to ensure that every New Yorker has access to clean, safe, and thriving parks.
3:12:00
Thank you.