What We Accomplished Together in 2023

   

Dear New Yorkers,

And just like that, another year in the life of this dynamic and extraordinary city we all share comes to a close. So I thought we’d recap some of the work that kept us busy in the Comptroller’s office over the past 12 months.

Though it hasn’t always felt that way (who ever heard of a “vibecession” before?), it’s actually been a pretty steady year economically for New York City as we continue recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic. Our economy is stable – one could say it’s under “comptrol” – and jobs are back to pre-pandemic levels. The New York Liberty made it to the WNBA finals. Sondheim musicals are suddenly a smash again on Broadway.

But 2023 brought heartache, too – with violence and war around the world, polarization and anxiety across our country, and record-high homelessness in the heart of New York City.

One note upfront: In a few weeks, City Hall plans to evict thousands of immigrant families with children from shelters that have provided a small modicum of stability as they work to get on their feet. Students will be uprooted from their schools and their friends. It’s imperative that City Hall reverse, not merely delay, its 60-day shelter policy in the greatest immigrant city the world has ever known. That’s something we can do to prevent cruelty here in the early days of 2024.

We are now halfway through my term as New York City Comptroller – continually guided by a vision of a more thriving, equitable, and resilient city. Two years in, I feel even more certain about this: We can and must make City government work both more efficiently and more compassionately so that all New Yorkers can truly thrive.

 

I am proud and continually astonished at the important work happening here at 1 Centre Street – a century-old building where civil servants have kept the gears turning for generations. I have tremendous gratitude for our staff of over 700 civil servants: New Yorkers who work on behalf of their fellow New Yorkers.

 

Every day, workers across more than 16 bureaus ensure that the City’s bills are paid, programs are run effectively, public money is well-managed, retirees have financial security (including our work to ensure they’re not forced onto inferior Medicare Advantage health plans), infrastructure projects are financed, workers aren’t cheated out of fair pay, major companies comport themselves properly (like our suit to stop Fox News from engaging in defamation), and SO much more.

 

The Office of the Comptroller has accomplished so much this year, so let’s look at just some of our work together…

 

In 2023, our Bureau of Asset Management (BAM) dutifully oversaw the investment portfolio for New York City’s five pension funds. These have approximately $242 billion in assets, representing the retirement security of our nearly 800,000 current and future retirees. For Fiscal Year 2023, the funds delivered strong returns of 8%, beating our actuarial target of 7%, our benchmarks, and many of our peers.

 

BAM staff oversaw dozens of new investments across our seven asset classes. They worked with each of the funds on new strategic asset allocations, building on the work we did last year to expand the “basket clause” for investments. We remain confident this will boost returns in the long run. And BAM implemented first-in-class transparency on our investments – so you can check them out for yourself.

 

In the spring, we worked with the funds to adopt our detailed and ambitious Net Zero Implementation Plan – the boldest climate action by any large U.S. public pension fund. We are building on our divestment from fossil fuels to drive measurable, science-based decarbonization across the economy. Because it is clearer every day that climate risk is financial risk, future economic thriving runs through a transition to renewable energy.

 

Our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) work doesn’t stop with the “E.” BAM led efforts to support workers’ rights at Starbucks and helped launch a new Labor Rights Investors Network alongside Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su. We launched an innovative effort to raise property management standards that we’ll have more to say about soon. We also sued the Fox Corporation’s board. Their failure to insist on ethics guidelines or journalistic standards led to over $787 million in payouts for defamation lawsuits that were paid for by shareholders.

 

Finally, last month, the Bureau of Asset Management closed out the year with our annual Diverse & Emerging Managers Conference, where we announced the expansion of the Emerging Manager Program. We anticipate this will increase investments in Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) firms by over $25 billion by 2029. That’s a big deal.

On top of registering and processing over 16,600 contract actions in 2023, our Bureau of Contracts Administration (BCA) has worked consistently to improve the contracting process. With this bureau’s help, City agencies can work better with vendors and serve New Yorkers more efficiently.

With emergency contracting ballooning to over $1 billion, BCA published a first-ever Emergency Procurement Report, identifying many ways we can meet urgent needs more effectively. That review led us to narrow the Adams Administration’s blanket authority for emergency contracting to a contract-specific basis, so we can make sure we’re getting what we’re paying for (and not paying more than we should be).

To help speed up a calcified procurement system, BCA worked with City Hall to establish a multi-year discretionary contract vehicle for City Council awards and launched a new digital interface for agencies. This will ensure that vendors – especially not-for-profit human service providers and MWBEs – aren’t paid many months late.

And as part of our efforts to ensure that MWBEs get a fair shot at City contracting, we held roundtables across the five boroughs to help foster business with the City in diverse communities, and rebooted our MWBE annual procurement report to focus on key opportunities for improvement.

Our Bureau of Audit completed 34 audits and reports in 2023. Our audits increase transparency, improve the effectiveness of government operations, identify and mitigate risk, and strengthen NYC’s fiscal position. And we’ve started tracking whether City agencies implement our recommendations, so you can see the difference we’re making.

Our audit of the City’s homeless sweeps revealed an utterly failing program: Only three out of 2,308 people who were removed in the sweeps were connected to permanent housing. An accompanying policy report identified much more effective ways that the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) could combat homelessness.

An audit of the City’s “Fair Share” siting showed that City agencies rarely follow the process required by the City Charter, resulting in growing racial disparities that we documented with a set of interactive maps. An audit of Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)’s Covid-19 emergency contracts highlighted financial waste which resulted from staffing levels set by a for-profit vendor.

We also launched several audits recommended by the NYCHA Resident Audit Committee, established last year as part of our commitment to engaging everyday New Yorkers in oversight work. This includes an audit on how NYCHA selects and evaluates repair vendors, and an audit on eviction rates in RAD/PACT developments. Watch for those in the coming months.

Lastly, this fall we launched a first-of-its kind “real-time” audit of the City’s $432 million contract with DocGo, a medical services company with no experience providing shelter to migrants. Most audits wait until a program or contract is concluded. But there are just too many outstanding questions and concerns about DocGo, and New Yorkers deserve real-time oversight and accountability.

Our Policy Team published vitally important data in 2023, like a worrying report about decreased service reliability in Citi Bikes, and a report finding that the Department of Education (DOE) failed to deliver mandated special education services to thousands of children, even as claims spending surged tenfold.

Policy worked with the Adams Administration to launch the long-awaited Capital Project Tracker that provides public transparency on the City’s capital spending. We launched an investigation into the City’s management of extreme rainfall following historic flooding, and pressed City Hall for answers regarding street vendor sweeps. And we released a report highlighting the impacts of staff vacancies on City agency performance.

After the Department of Correction (DOC) halted public disclosures, Policy Team updated our DOC Dashboard “deaths in custody count” to “UNKNOWN,” and will continue providing transparency as we advocate for federal receivership on Rikers. We also released an important report highlighting the benefits of the Clean Slate Act.

Finally, Policy Team published new air, water, and land quality maps on our Climate Dashboard, and importantly, won the inclusion of Public Solar NYC in PlaNYC (including a $1 million investment to ramp up solar production for 5,000 homes). And, in what is a keystone accomplishment for the Office of the Comptroller, our Policy Team assisted the Bureau of Asset Management in releasing the most ambitious Net Zero plan of any pension fund in the country.

Our busy Bureau of Budget produced a large volume of research and publications in 2023. This includes 12 monthly economic newsletters with “spotlights” on a variety of issues – from the Minimum Wage and the Personal Income Tax, to a brief on the Racial Wealth Gap in New York.

Additionally, Budget published four Charter-mandated reports on the economy, one report on Capital Debt & Obligations, and four quarterly cash reports and projections. Their budget analysis work played a significant role in monitoring the City’s response to providing services for immigrant families seeking asylum.

For the 43rd consecutive year, the Bureau of Accountancy not only ensured that the City’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) was delivered on time, but also received the Government Finance Officers Association’s Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. As we did for the first time last year, we made the reports available for download. And if you can’t make it through the 495 pages of the ACFR, the Bureau also released the Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) with an excellent summary and graphics.

For the first time, as part of Accountancy’s annual Closing Instructions Seminar with over 400 City agency representatives present, we called upon other City agencies to take the stage and share their knowledge. Accountancy also published a revised Directive on Capital Projects (aka “Directive 10”). This was met with great acclaim from City agencies, and especially our public library partners.

Those capital projects would not be possible without the work of the Bureau of Public Finance. Despite market volatility, the City’s borrowing and refinancing schedule remained consistent throughout the year, generating new capital to pay for infrastructure, and continuing to generate savings (despite higher interest rates).

In 2023, the Public Finance team capitalized on the City’s call option portfolio, issuing $6.8 billion of refinancing bonds and achieving $769 million of budget savings. They also oversaw the issuance of $700 million of social bonds for affordable housing projects.

Another big achievement: In April 2023, our Public Finance team issued New York City’s first tender offer in over 20 years. At the time of the transaction, the tender offer was one of the most successful of its kind in the municipal bond market, in both volume and percentage participation. This innovative sale accounted for more than $26 million of additional budget savings, bringing total savings of more than $108 million.

Since 2022, our Bureau of Labor Law has recovered over $5 million in back wages and civil penalties owed to workers. This year, we set a new prevailing wage for Staten Island Ferry workers. We won $200,000 in court for workers who got stiffed by an electrical contractor for DOE projects. And we reached a settlement for over half a million dollars with a subcontractor that failed to pay prevailing wages for workers on other DOE projects.

Meanwhile, this bureau forged important relationships across the city. They hosted the first Prevailing Wage Council in several years, participated in a number of solidarity actions with striking workers, and expanded our office’s outreach to worker centers, elected officials, faith-based groups, and the Mexican Consulate.

All the while, our Bureau of Public Affairs continues to uplift New York’s diverse cultural and ethnic communities across all five boroughs. This bureau took the lead on many “firsts” for our office in 2023, including our first Disability Justice Roundtable, our first Trans-Awareness event, and our inaugural people-powered NYCHA audit committee.

Public Affairs put on our Flushing Lunar New Year Celebration, once again issued the most comprehensive LGBTQ+ Resource Guide in the city, and engaged over 2,000 older New Yorkers in a survey designed to learn more about our aging population. Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team supported Public Affairs in keeping New Yorkers connected this year by leading our Equity Council Meetings, and advising programs such as Black History Month and our MWBE roundtables.

While that happens out in NYC’s communities, the Bureau of Administration works tirelessly to ensure that all the other departments inside 1 Centre Street are functioning. The Bureau of Information Systems and Technology developed dozens of new apps, processes, and tools for the various departments throughout 2023. Over at the Central Imaging Facility, 65,000 submissions were processed with an average processing time of less than one day!

Our Employment Services Team ensures that our brilliant staff are supported throughout their careers and the hiring process. This year, they issued new guidance for Hiring Managers, as well as helpful training for all managers and supervisors. This team also planned employee-centered activities throughout the year, including our Smoothie Hydration Hour, our annual healthy Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge, and information sessions on Breast Cancer Prevention.

The Facilities Team created an 18-month roadmap for continued renovations throughout 1 Centre Street. This team cleaned over 118,000 square feet of carpet in less than six months, and also installed brand new carpeting in five whole office suites! And our Procurement Operations Team’s overhaul of the Office’s Automated Requisitioning and Approval System (ARAS) process resulted in streamlined, efficient reform.

Perhaps our most satisfying victory of the year: With yours truly paddling alongside my colleagues, the Office of the Comptroller won the annual 2023 Hong Kong Dragon Boat Municipal Invitational Race, beating out the Mayor’s Office, Public Advocate’s Office, and Queens Borough President’s Office. We called our team the “Liquid Assets,” and I’m already looking forward to defending our title in 2024.

Bragging rights aside, I can promise that we won’t let up in our efforts to help make sure New York City works better in 2024.

With strong management, we can deliver effective services, mitigate the risks we face, open up opportunities to more New Yorkers, and invest in the more equitable, resilient, and innovative future that we and future generations deserve.

My deepest thanks to every single person here at the Comptroller’s Office, and to New Yorkers across all five boroughs. There really is no place like New York City – and it is a profound honor to work alongside you every day to help fulfill its tremendous promise.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Brad