NYC Council Launches Public Dashboards to Advance Transparency and Equity in City Budget Process

 

Today, the New York City Council launched its new Budget Dashboards, an innovative, public tool to make the City’s budget process more transparent, accessible, and equitable for New Yorkers. The two dashboards, created by the Council’s Finance Division, Web Development Unit, and Data Team, translate dense budget books into easy-to-understand pie charts that visualize the City’s budgeted expenses and projected revenue sources from Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 to Fiscal Year 2027. Users can view the budgeted spending by city agency and unit of appropriation and compare changes at each stage of the budget cycle.

“Transparency is the foundation of trust in government,” said Speaker Julie Menin. “With the launch of this first-of-its-kind Finance Dashboard, we are giving New Yorkers the tools to see, understand, and engage with how public dollars are allocated. This is about more than data—it’s about equity, accountability, and ensuring every community has visibility into the decisions that shape their lives.”

The expense dashboard separates each Financial Plan into categories, including Education, Social Services, Infrastructure, Public Safety, and Pensions, Debt Service, and Fringe Benefits, to display their share of the City’s expense budget. The revenue dashboard shows the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) projected tax revenue from various tax sources, including Personal Income, Real Property, Sales, and more. The dashboards will be updated in correspondence with each future Financial Plan. In the coming months, fiscal years prior to FY21 will be viewable in the dashboards as well.

The Council’s Budget Dashboards were built with the goal of making public budget data more accessible, transparent, and equitable for all New Yorkers, including communities that historically lack access to the City’s budget process. By providing the public with a new, user-friendly resource, the Council is further democratizing the city budget to empower more New Yorkers to navigate and understand the opaque process and better understand the impact of financial decisions that are being made on their behalf.