Thursday, January 28, 2021

STATE OF THE CITY 2021: MAYOR DE BLASIO ANNOUNCES A RECOVERY FOR ALL OF US

 

 Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a bold recovery plan for all New Yorkers as part of his 2021 State of the City address and unveiled the City’s recovery website: RecoveryForAll.nyc.gov. The address can be viewed here

“New York City always fights back,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “And we will do so again. Together, we will create a stronger, fairer and safer city for all New Yorkers.”

 

The Mayor’s 2021 agenda is centered around using public health to drive a fair recovery for all New Yorkers. The plan prioritizes vaccinating against COVID-19 to jumpstart the recovery, using the City government to fight inequality, building a fairer economy, helping our children recover emotionally and academically from the impact of COVID, strengthening community based solutions to public safety and fighting the climate crisis.

 

VACCINATE TO JUMPSTART THE RECOVERY

The foundation of a recovery for all of us is a massive vaccination effort. In 2021, New York City will lead the largest vaccination effort in our history to defeat COVID-19 and supercharge our recovery.

 

Reaching the 5 Million Milestone in June

New York City’s Vaccine for All campaign has already vaccinated more than half a million New Yorkers and has reached a pace of one New Yorker every three seconds. Last week alone, New York City vaccinated more people than the equivalent of six sold-out crowds at the next World Series game in Citi Field. With 412 vaccination sites spread across the city, from 24/7 mega vaccination sites to dozens of community health clinics, New York City will meet our aggressive goals if we receive enough supply and the freedom to vaccinate.

 

New York City’s vaccination effort is the foundation of a recovery for all of us. With every vaccine shot, New York City moves closer and closer to fully reopening our economy, restoring the jobs we lost and ensuring equality in our comeback.

 

New York City is staking out a radical new goal to supercharge that recovery. We will reach a high level of immunity by achieving the 5 million New Yorkers vaccinated milestone in June. That is the pace we must meet to drive a recovery that works for all of us.

 

Full City Government Workforce Return Begins in May

The City of New York’s diverse workforce will lead the way in driving a recovery for all of us. While tens of thousands of City workers have been working on the frontlines during the pandemic, thousands of City workers, just like private sector workers, have been working remotely in response to COVID-19.

 

With multiple workforce sites vaccinating over 3,000 workers a day, New York City is announcing a new goal: We will begin to bring back the rest of our City workforce in May.

 

The return of City workers across the five boroughs will be a signal to the world that the comeback is happening right here, right now, as New York City vaccinates millions of New Yorkers.

 

Expand NYC’s Vaccine for All Corps

New York City will reach our new vaccination goals because of the workers ready to staff and vaccinate at the City’s vaccination sites. To reach these new heights, New York City will immediately recruit 2,000 new Vaccine for All Corps members.

 

Recruitment of these new workers will be focused in the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. Working within partnerships already established with local nonprofits, the City will aim to recruit workers to serve their own neighborhoods. This will not only ensure there are familiar, friendly faces greeting New Yorkers at their local vaccination site—it will help drive trust and combat hesitancy.

 

These new Vaccine for All Corps members will join over 3,900 current vaccination workers at NYC Department of Health sites across the city. The new Vaccine for All Corps members will serve as vaccinators as well as general staff at vaccination sites. The NYC Vaccine Command Center will oversee staffing needs by sites in real-time, shifting and adjusting staff levels to meet demand.

 

BEND GOVERNMENT TO FIGHT INEQUALITY

A recovery for all of us means reimaging what New York City government can do to confront the inequalities and systemic racism that pervade America. This year, we will enact real structural reforms to change the nature of government and ensure the Office of the Mayor of New York City is permanently positioned to combat racism and inequality.

 

Permanent Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity

Established during an historic nationwide push for racial justice in 2020, the NYC Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity quickly became a force for equality. The Taskforce is comprised of leaders of color from across city government who identify new opportunities to push for progress and address inequality.

 

In the short time the Taskforce has existed, it has identified the communities hardest hit by COVID-19 and driven new investments and initiatives in these neighborhoods, including new COVID-19 Centers of Excellence to increase access to primary care in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The Taskforce has also launched the Landlord-Tenant Mediation project to keep people in their homes, announced a $2.3 Million One Fair Wage Award to restaurants that kept working New Yorkers employed in tough times and expanded mental health support for students in some of the hardest hit neighborhoods.

 

With the stroke of a pen this year, Mayor de Blasio will make the Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity a permanent part of New York City’s government. For years to come, the Taskforce will continue to push forward new reforms across the city to bring about racial, social, economic and climate justice.

 

Charter Revision Commission

In order to build a recovery for all of us in New York City’s future, we must also address the pain of the past. Starting this year, Mayor de Blasio is naming a Charter Revision Commission that will focus on racial justice and reconciliation.

 

The commission will have a two-year mandate to identify areas of structural racism in New York City and recommend changes that will root out this systemic rot. With the new commission, New York City can lead the way in America by speaking openly of the wrongs of the past, creating new approaches to right those wrongs, and enshrining this progress into law.

 

BUILD A NEW ECONOMY

To achieve a recovery for all of us, New York City must confront the unemployment crisis by building a new economy that establishes New York as the Public Health Capital of the World and drives job creation.

 

Restore and Surpass Record Job Levels of 1 Year Ago

As recent as February 2020, New York City had record employment levels. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, leading to a global economic crisis and the loss of 900,000 jobs in New York City. By the end of 2020, New York City recovered nearly one third of those jobs, including saving over 100,000 jobs through Mayor de Blasio’s Open Restaurants program. 

 

We still have much more to do.

 

A recovery for all of us means not only restoring the jobs lost during the pandemic but surpassing those record jobs numbers of early 2020. With our massive vaccination effort, New York City will be on the path to restore 400,000 more jobs by the end of the year.  

 

New York City’s most direct impact on job growth will be our massive vaccination effort. By vaccinating millions of people to reach high levels of immunity, New York City will drive the return of jobs in professional services, which could account for over 25% of all restored jobs in the next two years. New York City will also see 125,000 jobs coming back in its hospitality sector, which can be achieved by leading the country in vaccinations, launching marketing campaigns and promoting the return of arts and cultural centers. 

 

In addition, New York City will further spark the recovery of jobs with investments to grow our life sciences ecosystem, build out our public health corps, and support hiring by small businesses.

 

Hiring in the Community

A recovery for all of us means job growth to lift-up the communities that were hit hardest by COVID-19. The Community Hiring First plan would provide thousands of construction jobs for low-income communities leading to an estimated $1 billion in wages and benefits for target communities during the first full year of the program. In addition to the City’s project labor agreement to require City construction projects to hire within the surrounding community, the City will push state lawmakers to pass legislation that requires more contractors and businesses to hire low-income New Yorkers and New Yorkers from high poverty communities.

 

Creating Jobs at Minority and Women Owned Businesses

We must also ensure job growth is fueled by minority and women owned businesses. Building off the City’s new equitable ownership requirement established in 2020, the City announced that the New York City Acquisition Fund, a $210 million public-private affordable housing loan fund, will only finance projects led by a minority-owned developer, women-owned developer or non-profit developer with a minimum 51 percent ownership stake in the project.

 

10,000 Workers in the City Cleanup Corps  

When an economic crisis like no other hit working people across the country, President – and New Yorker – Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide good-paying jobs to people in need and improve the country’s infrastructure.

 

The massive job loss in New York City caused by the pandemic-driven global economic crisis calls for a similar program to create jobs and improve our city. This year, if the government provides ample direct stimulus support, New York City will be able to create our own CCC: the City Cleanup Corps.

 

The City Cleanup Corps will employ 10,000 New Yorkers for beautification across our city. NYC CCC workers will wipe away graffiti, power wash sidewalks, create community murals, tend to community gardens, beautify public spaces, and work with community organizations to clean their neighborhoods.

 

While the jobs will be temporary for 2021, the work done will help drive tourism and confidence, and the wages earned will help drive a recovery for all of us.

 

Tax the Wealthy and Redistribute Wealth

During the pandemic, 120 New York billionaires grew their net worth by $77 billion. There is clearly enough money in New York to invest in a fair and fast recovery – it’s just in the wrong hands.

 

Simply put, this is about redistribution. So far in his tenure, Mayor de Blasio has redistributed over $20 billion to New York City’s working families through programs like Pre-K for All and NYC Care, and we must grow that number. The pandemic has laid bare the drastic disparities we all knew existed in New York City long before COVID-19.

 

Washington must deliver a true stimulus to allow New York City to immediately recover this year. But a recovery for all of us will take investments in working families far into the future. In order to drive this recovery for years to come, New York City will join the thousands of grassroots advocates organizing in Albany demanding we tax the wealthy and invest those funds into working people and their neighborhoods.

 

New York City will fight for new progressive income taxes that establish brackets with increased tax rates for high earners and the ultra-wealthy. And with more billionaires in than any other city in America, New York City will push for a billionaires’ tax. The billions of dollars raised from these progressive taxes will go into investing in New York City’s schools, working families, and a recovery for all of us.

 

NYC: The Public Health Capital of the World

Establish LifeSci Avenue

When the pandemic hit and the federal government failed to invest in the testing we needed, New York City took the unprecedented step of building our own testing lab. The lab’s success proved that the next tests, treatments and cures can be made right here in New York City. To accomplish that goal, New York City is building on its success with the Pandemic Response Lab and co-locating a new NYC Pandemic Response Institute at the Alexandria Center for Life Science.

 

In the next decade, the City will drive life sciences innovation, create job opportunities and position New York City as a leader in the development and delivery of cutting-edge healthcare treatments. This includes launching more than 3 million square feet of additional life sciences innovation space, supporting 100 new startup companies and hundreds of new cures and treatments. With this support, over this new decade, the city’s institutions and companies will attract $20 billion in federal funding and $10 billion in venture investment to further grow the City’s life science capabilities. Investing in public health won’t just create 25,000 permanent jobs in labs and offices, it would create over 26,000 construction jobs as we build new infrastructure across the city.

 

In order to establish New York City as the Public Health Capital of the World, we will continue to build out research and development to establish LifeSci Avenue – stretching from the Pandemic Response Institute in Kips Bay in the South through East Harlem in the North. This corridor will anchor the City’s public health vision with neighborhood clusters across the City –Long Island City, Sunset Park, Central Brooklyn, Hudson Square, Manhattan’s West Side, West Harlem, Upper Manhattan, and Morris Park – to build a complete network of life science innovation.

 

Transform Test & Trace into Public Health Corps

New York City’s public Health + Hospitals stood up the Test & Trace Corps during the height of the pandemic and grew it into the most successful contact tracing program in the country. When the pandemic is over, we’ll carry on this work and permanently transform it into the NYC Public Health Corps.

 

The NYC Public Health Corps, with federal funding, will create 4,000 permanent, good-paying jobs in the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. The public health corps will partner with existing community organizations to connect New Yorkers to health care resources and promote healthier neighborhoods. Together with NYC Care, New York City’s public health care program to guarantee low-cost and no-cost health care to New Yorkers who cannot afford health insurance, the NYC Public Health Corps will help guarantee health care as a human right for all New Yorkers, a fundamental piece of a recovery for all of us.

 

Medgar Evers College Health Care Career Hub

We are creating next-generation health care jobs in New York City, but need to make sure people are trained and ready to take these jobs. To do that, we’ll invest in Medgar Evers College, New York City’s historically Black college, to create a health care career hub at Medgar Evers.

 

In partnership with CUNY leadership and the Central Brooklyn community, New York City will strengthen academic supports for incoming students, fully integrate career readiness and work-based learning into the classroom, and launch wide-ranging employer partnerships, with a particular focus on New York City’s health care and tech sectors.

 

Marketing Campaigns for Our Comeback

The City will lead a comeback marketing campaign to rally New Yorkers’ confidence that a stronger, fairer New York is emerging. This comeback marketing campaign will be targeted to all New Yorkers, as well as outside the city, to drive a larger cultural sense of positivity and optimism. In addition, the City will continue to support the AllIn NYC tourism and hospitality marketing campaign, to boost job growth in one of the hardest-hit industries. Altogether, the marketing campaigns will make clear that New York City is the place to live, work, and grow.

 

Revitalize Small Businesses

While Wall Street made record profits this year, countless small businesses had to close their doors or downsize – or are hanging on for dear life. New York City reacted quickly during the heights of the pandemic with in-the-moment innovations like the Open Restaurants program to save 100,000 jobs. Adding to this support, New York City made the Open Restaurants program permanent and opened up outdoor opportunity to small retail businesses with the Open Storefronts program. And with more New Yorkers getting vaccinated, there is more we can do to directly support our small businesses.

 

NYC Small Business Recovery Tax Credit

New York City will provide direct support to our city’s small businesses to boost our recovery and put New Yorkers back to work. The NYC Small Business Recovery Tax Credit will be a $50 million rental assistance program for up to 17,000 small businesses in the arts, entertainment, recreation, food services, and accommodation sectors that have experienced hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

 

Businesses in these sectors with gross revenue below $1 million will be eligible for a tax credit equal to 6% of their calendar year 2021 rent, up to maximum credit of $10,000. Businesses will need to retain their current workforce to be eligible, driving job retention in our neighborhoods.

 

The new tax credit program will require State legislation, and New York City will expand it if Washington provides a robust stimulus with direct local aid for cities. The City would look to expand the program to additional small businesses and increase the value of the credit to incentivize hiring more New Yorkers, saving and creating over 10,000 jobs.

 

NYC Small Business Recovery Loans

In addition to expanding the Recovery Tax Credit with stimulus funds, New York City will also establish the NYC Small Business Recovery Loan program to help shops keep their doors open and recover. New York City will provide low-interest loans of up to $100,000 to over 2,000 small businesses in the communities hit hardest by COVID-19 to drive a recovery for all of us. 

 

Small businesses will be able to apply for loans from a $100 million fund built from City funds that leverage outside lenders. The loans will go to small businesses that have experienced hardship due to the pandemic and have submitted a recovery plan to rebuild their business and bring our city back.

 

Cut Fines and Red Tape to Boost New Small Businesses

The Open Restaurants program saved 100,000 jobs during the height of the pandemic by quickly cutting red tape and embracing entrepreneurial creativity. New York City will jumpstart our economic recovery by embracing the lessons we learned from Open Restaurants’ success. Working with agencies across the government, the Department of Small Business Services will cut first time fines to small businesses, expand the number of self-certify permits and inspection applications, establish no-fine visits from regulators, and produce plain language compliance guides in multiple languages. Thousands of new jobs will be created by making it easier to do business in New York City.

 

Bridge the Digital Divide

Every New Yorker must have affordable broadband access to truly achieve a recovery for all of us. New York City will make leaps and bounds in 2021 to bridge the digital divide with a massive effort across the city.

 

Working with community organizations and both new and existing internet providers, New York City will make historic changes to open up the broadband market and support the City’s affordable internet goals, provide new opportunities for Minority and Women Owned Businesses, and create quality local jobs. The City will leverage its infrastructure in every borough – rooftops, poles, buildings and street furniture – to create new broadband networks reaching more than 600,000 New Yorkers with affordable service this year. That includes incentivizing companies to provide new low-cost broadband options to over 200,000 NYCHA public housing residents.

 

The City will further drive competition by putting in place new franchises this year to facilitate creation of new low-cost internet options from new companies across all five boroughs. In addition, under terms of a new agreement with Verizon, 500,000 more households will have access to FIOS service by 2023.

 

The Year of 5G

The next generation of economic growth demands that new broadband connections, including 5G, are built equitably. 2021 will be the year of 5G in New York City. The City will aggressively expand 5G infrastructure across the City, by offering up 7,500 pole tops starting this year to build new 5G networks, particularly in boroughs outside of Manhattan, with a priority focus on underserved neighborhoods to ensure that New York City has the connectivity foundation to support a recovery for all of us.

 

End Street Homelessness

The global economic downturn fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to many people being faced with homelessness. In response, New York City is expanding on the Journey Home Action Plan to End Long-Term Street Homelessness. New York City will establish an additional 1,000 new Safe Haven beds in 2021, on top of the more than 1,000 additional beds opened in 2020. In addition, in 2021, the City will end the decades-long cluster shelter program put in place during the Giuliani administration and achieve our goal of siting 90 new borough-based shelters. All of these polices share the same goal: Ensuing every New Yorker has the quality services they need to get back on their feet and be lifted up by our economic recovery.

 

 

CLOSE THE COVID ACHIEVEMENT GAP 

A recovery for all of us has already started in our public schools. New York City schools will reach every child – academically and emotionally – to close the COVID Achievement Gap.

 

Fully, Safely Reopen Our Schools

The key to jumpstarting a recovery for all of us is opening our schools to all students, safely and on-time, to start the next school year. This will not only give our students the time in classrooms they’ve been desperately missing, it will help jump start our recovery in working class neighborhoods. New York City established the gold standard in school safety protocols during the pandemic, with increased ventilation, social distancing, mandatory masks for all, and a robust testing regimen leading our schools to be some of the healthiest spaces in the entire city during the pandemic. That model will be repeated until our vaccination effort drives our city to full community immunity.

 

2021 Student Achievement Plan

Students faced unprecedented challenges last school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools were shutdown, classrooms became virtual and many grades have yet to fully reopen. The 2021 Student Achievement plan is constructed to help our students recover and continue their education.

 

The 2021 Student Achievement plan will help our students by getting a baseline of what ground we lost, increase the amount of high quality digital curriculum available for every single school, launch a one-stop digital learning hub, deepen professional development, expand “Parent University,” and confront the trauma and mental health crisis faced by our students.

 

Reach Every Child

Building on ThriveNYC’s years of investments in the social emotional wellbeing of students, the 2021 Student Achievement plan includes a three-pronged approach to confront the trauma and mental health crisis faced by our students. Beginning in the communities hardest hit by COVID-19, the DOE will make social, emotional, and academic behavior screeners available for all students K-12, hire 150 additional social workers, and add a community school in each of these hardest hit neighborhoods. This first phase will serve approximately 380,000 students across approximately 830 schools.

 

This plan includes partnerships with community-based organizations and builds on the administration’s significant investments in the social and emotional wellbeing of young people, including through our Resilient Kids, Safer Schools initiative that expanded social-emotional learning and restorative justice approaches citywide. Social workers will work in partnership with educators and Health + Hospitals clinicians, through the previously announced Pathways to Care initiative, to target resources, clinical supports, and interventions to students based on their unique needs.

 

Drive Diversity in Our Schools

A true recovery requires that every child across New York City, no matter their family’s income level or zip code, has a high-quality education. This year, the City will take concrete steps forward to continue to desegregate our schools to truly reflect the diversity of our neighborhoods. The Department of Education will support five additional districts in implementing District Diversity Plans to foster greater integration in their classrooms. Middle Schools screens have been postponed in 2021 and district priorities for high school admissions, and all other geographic priorities, will be eliminated in 2021. We will develop a new system for identifying and serving gifted and talented students and implement it later this year.

 

Training the Next Generation of Superintendents

School leaders have done more than just keep students and staff safe this year. They have innovated at every turn. The Department of Education will recommit to nurturing the incomparable talent in our public school system with the Aspiring Superintendents Academy.

 

Launching this spring, the Aspiring Superintendents Academy will be a highly selective, rigorous 10-month Superintendent preparation program. The Academy will train tenured principals with a track record of driving student achievement and serving our diverse learners and communities. These talented educators are the future of New York City schools and giving the pathways to success is an investment in every one of our learners.

 

COMMUNITY POWER IN NEIGHBORHOOD POLICING

A true recovery will be fueled not just by economic growth–it will also be driven by safe neighborhoods and increased power of community members in policing. This year, New York City will put in place new, comprehensive reforms to strengthen neighborhood policing, further decrease crime, deepen the bonds between police and community, and bring our city together as we all rebuild and recover.

 

Joint Force to End Gun Violence: Fight Back Against Shootings

Overall crime decreased in 2020 in New York City, but the national surge in gun violence was felt in far too many of our neighborhoods. The majority of perpetrators make up a small group of people, and New York City will be focused on addressing these individuals specifically to prevent violence and keep people safe.

 

To achieve this goal, we will launch the NYC Joint Force to End Gun Violence to maintain a sustained focus on likely shooters. The Joint Force will be comprised of members of NYPD, Cure Violence groups, District Attorney offices, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, City agencies, and additional local community groups and law enforcement organizations.

 

The Joint Force to End Gun Violence will implement citywide shooting reviews across different agencies, systematically identify those involved and address underlying dynamics, and create cleaner lines of communications between anti-gun violence groups and police. The Joint Force will also re-energize the NYPD’s Ceasefire program, which was first launched by the NYPD, state and federal law enforcement agencies, clergy, community leaders, and social service providers in 2014.

 

Ceasefire, which has been shown to lower homicides and shootings dramatically in multiple major cities, provides direct engagement with the most at-risk individuals in our communities to provide a legitimate offer of help and assistance to keep them safe, alive, and out of prison. Ceasefire relies on a robust partnership between law enforcement, service providers, and community partners, and has effectively reduced criminal justice engagement while achieving our paramount objective: To stop the shootings.

 

New York City will bolster the Joint Force effort by launching the “Top 100” strategy. The Top 100 focuses on the 100 blocks that have the highest numbers of shootings, which also have disproportionate numbers of 311 and 911 calls. Working with community partners, neighborhood-based organizations, NYPD and other City agencies, we will use a collaborative, problem-solving approach to promote safety.

 

The David Dinkins Plan: Expand and Strengthen CCRB

A true New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) had been an idea for decades before Mayor David Dinkins made it a reality in 1993. Since then, CCRB has been strengthened, but more work is left to fully realize a vision first championed by leaders like Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

This year, Mayor de Blasio will implement the David Dinkins Plan, the single largest expansion and strengthening of the CCRB since it was established. The Dinkins Plan will:

 

Grant CCRB New Review Powers

The Dinkins Plan expands what the CCRB can access and what they can investigate. Most importantly, it grants CCRB the power to initiate their own investigations. The Dinkins Plan will:

·                 Allow CCRB to initiate individual case investigations on its own, without an individual complainant.

·                 Guarantee timely access to body worn camera footage.

·                 Grant CCRB full access to officers’ disciplinary and employment histories for substantiated cases.

·                 Give CCRB authority to investigate individual instances of “biased-based policing” misconduct.

 

Establish the Patrol Guide Review Committee

The Dinkins Plan will establish a Patrol Guide Review Committee to examine situations where no misconduct was found because the actions were within policy, but the policy itself was problematic. This will allow those in NYPD oversight to drive forward policy and promote further reforms directly in the NYPD.

 

Expand CCRB to Include the Powers of NYPD-OIG and CCPC

In the single largest structural change since the CCRB was formed, the Dinkins Plan will consolidate the Commission to Combat Police Corruption (CCPC) and the NYPD Office of the Inspector General (OIG) under the CCRB.  Police oversight will be greatly strengthened by consolidating these existing oversight functions into a single body. The newly strengthened CCRB will have the combined authority to:

·                 Investigate complaints from the public and recommend discipline of officers.

·                 Conduct regular audits of policing, internal discipline and anti-corruption practices.

·                 Conduct systemic reviews of NYPD policy and practices, including racially biased policing, and make recommendations for reform, including publishing regular public reports about complaint statistics and public tracking of progress on recommendations.

 

Double the Cure Violence Workforce

The Cure Violence movement and the Crisis Management System (CMS) has worked across New York City to bring communities closer together and stop violence. Teams of credible messengers—community members whose backgrounds allow them to connect with and motivate those at-risk—mediate conflicts on the street and connect high-risk individuals to services. These services include a year-round employment program, mental health services, and trauma counselling.

 

In 2020, in the face of a pandemic threatening to tear our social fabric apart, New York City expanded the Cure Violence workforce, bringing this neighborhood-based violence reduction approach to the 20 precincts with the highest rates of gun violence. This year, New York City will again expand CMS and double the number of New Yorkers employed in the Cure Violence movement.

 

Give Communities a Voice in Choosing Precinct Commanders

The mission of neighborhood policing is to strengthen the bonds between community and police, and New York City is taking historic steps to deepen those bonds in 2021. Beginning this year, communities will have a direct role in selecting the NYPD precinct commanders.

 

New York City will empower local community members to not only perform annual evaluations of commanding officers’ performances, but also help select precinct commanders from the start. Precinct Councils will hold interviews of NYPD’s proposed candidates for precinct commanders and provide the NYPD with feedback on the candidates.

 

Following the selection of a new Precinct Commander, the panel will have an ongoing relationship with the commanding officer, and will evaluate their general effectiveness, engagement with the larger community and responsiveness to issues raised by the community.

 

Putting the Community into CompStat: Elevate Community Feedback 

In September 2020, NYPD launched a customer service pilot in the 25th and 113th Precincts that encouraged New Yorkers to provide direct feedback about the services they received or requested. This month, New York City will expand this citywide.

 

To further deepen this commitment responding to community feedback, NYPD commanding officers will be required to begin reporting customer service and community-focused metrics to strengthen and improve bonds of their communities and precincts. This is consistent with the approach to crime statistics already reported at CompStat, which drives the Department to commit time and resources to fighting cr

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MAYOR DE BLASIO DELIVERS 2021 STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

 

 Mayor Bill de Blasio: Let me tell you a story, a story about a city that bore the brunt of the COVID crisis, a city that was the epicenter, a city that was laid low, but refused to be held down. Let me tell you a story about how things change, about the way we come back, about the way we build something better. Let me tell you a tale of a new city. And this story begins with a little history.   

There were times before when we were laid low, when so many naysayers said New York City's best days were over – after the Great Depression of the 1930’s; the fiscal crisis of the 1970’s; that horrible day, 9/11/2001; after the Great Recession hit; and Hurricane Sandy. Each and every one of these horrible moments came with prophecies of doom for New York City, and yet New York City fought back. New York City found a way. New York City made something better each and every time. And where did it take us?  

 

By January of 2020, one year ago, we were at the strongest point we'd ever experienced in our history – the most jobs we had ever had in New York City, our strongest economy, record-low unemployment; our schools, better than ever – Pre-K for All, 3-K; our city and our streets, safe – crime driven down year after year, while police and community came closer together. One year ago, today, New York City was surging forward, taking all of the pain of the past and turning it into progress.  

 

And then, COVID hit. And the story could have ended there – all of our achievements, falling away. But that's not New York City. New Yorkers did what we always do. New Yorkers fought back. We created a path forward.  

 

So, in March and April, we were the epicenter of this crisis and we didn't have all the things we needed. We built our own. We created our own supplies to save lives. We built ventilators. We produce PPE. We created our own testing lab. Whatever it took, we found a way here in New York City. New Yorkers stepped up to protect each other.  

 

Then, the summer came. We went from worst to first – from the epicenter to one of the safest places in the United States of America. And to make sure we could deepen our fight against COVID, we created the largest Test and Trace Corps. in the nation, protecting thousands and thousands of New Yorkers. And when the naysayers said it couldn't be done, and when cities all over the nation dared not to try, we reopened our schools. We made them the safest places in New York City. That's our way forward. That spirit, that heart, that willingness to take on any challenge, that is how we build a new city.  

 

Together, we will drive a recovery for all of us. To do it, we have to aim high. In May, we will begin to bring back the rest of our City workers – the public servants our city depends on with a dedicated vaccination campaign. And, today, we are declaring a new goal. In June, we will reach a milestone – 5 million New Yorkers vaccinated. That is how we jumpstart a recovery for all of us. We will reach high levels of immunity to create a safer city, a city ready for a full comeback. It will be a signal to the world that the comeback is happening right here, right now. We need the supply, but, so long as it's there, New York City will lead the way.  

 

As we bring our city back, we need to bring our children back. We need to help our children reach their full potential, and that's why we'll bring our schools back fully in September. They've been the safest places in New York City, and they will be again. We'll bring our schools back for our children, but we'll also recognize all they've been through. We'll close the COVID achievement gap with new approaches to learning, using the power of digital education and the strength of our educators to reach every child with an individualized approach. It's not just about academics, it's also about the emotional needs of our children. And so, we're going to provide mental health screening for all the children of New York City. We're bringing in more social workers to serve them, creating more community schools where the whole community gets involved in helping our children. 

 

Our 2021 Student Achievement Plan reaches the whole child. And to make sure we continue to create a fair and better city, we’ll deepen our efforts to diversify our schools, changing our approach to admissions, and ensuring that every child has opportunity where before it was denied them. We’ll deepen the extraordinary pool of leadership in our public schools with a new training academy for our next generation of superintendents. We’ll harness the amazing energy that allowed New York City public schools to keep going no matter what, and we'll ensure the next school year is a transcendent moment for our children.  

 

The new city we need to build has to be a city where everyone belongs. That new city we build has to be one where everyone feels fairness and the decency they deserve. To do that, we have to transform the relationship between our police and our communities. We have to change the culture of policing, fundamentally. We know that the COVID crisis has left us with new challenges, but we overcome those challenges by bringing community closer, by deepening neighborhood policing, by ensuring there is trust. To overcome the challenge of violence fostered by the COVID crisis, we're creating a new joint force to end gun violence and fight back against shootings. This will not just be the NYPD, it'll be leaders of communities all over New York City. It means getting the community involved. It means bringing in the Cure Violence Movement and the Crisis Management System, working with district attorneys, ensuring that everyone is working together for a common purpose.  

 

We know it is only a very few who commit the violence in New York City. But with this new approach, we will identify, individual by individual, who's creating the violence that afflicts everyone else, and will bring to bear all the energies of community and law enforcement to end that violence. We’ll re-energize the Ceasefire Initiative, which has done so much good. We'll use the power of the Cure Violence Movement and the Crisis Management System to deepen its reach in our communities. We’ll double the workforce that does this crucial work, involving and engaging community members to solve community problems. We'll also ask the community to help us decide who are the best local police leaders for their neighborhood. From this point on, the selection of precinct commanders will be made with the engagement of the community. When it's time to choose a new commander, precinct council members will meet with multiple candidates and provide their views to the Commissioner, before the Commissioner decides. By bringing in these voices of the neighborhood, we'll make sure that local police leaders have the support and engagement of the communities they serve. 

 

The way forward in this city depends on trust. The forward depends on accountability. Where there is accountability there is also trust. Trust between neighborhoods and police. And that’s why we are announcing the David Dinkins Plan to expand and strengthen the Civilian Complaint Review Board. We named it after Mayor David Dinkins because he made the CCRB a reality. And this new plan takes historic steps forward. We will grant the CCRB new review powers, we’ll make sure the NYPD patrol guide is reviewed, and expand the power of the CCRB to do the kind of proactive work necessary to improve the relationship between police and community, to give people more confidence. That trust and confidence ultimately means more cooperation between community and police, and that is the way to reduce crime and violence. That is the ultimate expression of neighborhood policing.  

 

And we'll also change the value we put on community engagement, by changing the training of our police officers to focus more on a real dialogue with the community. We'll expand the People’s Police Academy, ensuring that officers are trained by neighborhood residents before they ever walk the streets of our neighborhoods. We’ll change CompStat itself, the very tool that has helped us move forward over decades. The new CompStat, CompStat 3.0, will focus deeply on efforts to engage the community, to maximize trust, to maximize neighborhood involvement in stopping crime. We'll do all the important work and the precision policing we've always done, but we'll deepen the true X-factor in the equation – the involvement of the people, the involvement of the neighborhood itself. 

 

As we tell this tale of a new city, as we drive a recovery for all of us, we will bring our city back in so many ways that you will see and feel. And one of them is, we'll create a cleaner city. We'll hire 10,000 New Yorkers, using stimulus funds, borrowing from one of the greatest initiatives of the New Deal. New York City's own Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps, and we'll update that idea. The City Cleanup Corps will wipe away graffiti, power wash sidewalks, create community murals, tend to community gardens, beautify public spaces, and work with community organizations to clean their neighborhoods. This will be a cleanup blitz during the year of 2021 to help us come back strong. 

 

In our new city, we will reach those who live on our streets, a painful tragedy that we can no longer accept in New York City. So, we'll take the plan we initiated just a year ago, the Journey Home, and we'll deepen it to end street homelessness as we know it. We already today have the lowest number of New Yorkers in shelter that we've had in years. We're doing more and more to get folks the affordable housing they need, but the pain of New Yorkers living on the streets has to end once and for all, and only ends with intensive human firsthand outreach. Bringing folks off the streets and giving them a chance for new life, it only works with thousands of new Safe Haven beds, and more mental health and substance misuse services to help people find a better way. We recommit ourselves as we come out of the COVID era. And for the city to move forward, for us to tell a new story together, we all have to participate in the greatest challenge facing us ahead. 

 

Soon, the day will come when we aren't talking about the coronavirus, but we will be talking about the climate crisis. It will be the clear and present danger confronting all of us, and the only way we overcome it is to fully acknowledge the danger, and use everything we have together to stop it. And so, that means New York City has to lead the way in ending the use of fossil fuels and turning to renewable energy once and for all. We started by taking the billions of dollars in New York City pension fund investments and taking them away from fossil fuel companies that were poisoning the earth, putting that money into renewable energy development. And now, we resolve to deepen this effort by making a commitment to a $50 billion investment of our pension resources in renewable energy over the next 15 years. We will take all of our pension fund dollars away from any element of the fossil fuel supply chain and make sure those dollars are helping us create a greener future. But that's just the beginning, we need to make clear that New York City will renounce fossil fuels fully. And, therefore, we need to ban fossil fuel connections in the city by the end of this decade, literally ensuring that our only choice is renewable energy. We need to turn to renewables like never before and connect New York City to clean Canadian hydropower and invest in the transmission lines that make that possible. With this new asset, New York City’s government will run on 100 percent renewable energy in the next four years.   

  

These are the kinds of efforts that change the reality fundamentally, but we also have to change the way we live if we're going to fight climate change, and that means moving away from our cars, leaving the era of the automobile behind. We're going to make Open Streets a permanent part of New York City, giving back the streets to the people, to pedestrians and bicyclists, using them to deepen our Open Restaurants Program and create beautiful community oasis. We'll make Open Streets permanent, and we'll keep building them out more each year so New Yorkers have a better way to live, and not one that always depends on the automobile. We'll take our bridges, our iconic bridges that we see as beautiful symbols of the city – but, unfortunately, has also been part of the problem – and we'll turn them into part of the solution. For the Brooklyn Bridge and the Queensboro Bridge, we'll create new two-way protected bike lanes. We'll have space on the bridges devoted solely to clean transportation, and we'll create new bike boulevards in every borough designed to give bicycles travel priority and put cyclist safety first. These are the kind of changes that allow us to move out of the era of fossil fuels and the era of the automobile, and into a green future as part of our commitment to the New York City Green New Deal.   

  

To build a new economy, we have to have a different vision. We have to have a recovery for all of us. We have to understand that an economy that works for everyone is the only one that's acceptable after everything that we've experienced with COVID-19, after the disparities and the pain. And so, our economy increasingly will be based on the notion that health care is a human right. And the only way to build a strong society is to build a healthy society. If we ever need an example of why that matters, we've got it in the year 2020 from the coronavirus.  

 

In the years ahead, we will make New York City the public health capital of the world. We will take all of our strengths, our universities, our hospitals, our incredibly talented workforce, our entrepreneurs, our creative people, we'll take all those strengths and marry them with a vision – fairness and equality in health care. We'll take the pain that we experienced during the coronavirus crisis and use the lessons we learned to lead this country and the world in creating the new cures, and stopping the next pandemic, in building a sense of public health for everyone, in creating a public health corps., thousand strong, taking the model of our Test and Trace Corps. and making it permanent so that community-based health care and the promotion of healthy lives, the proactive, preventative efforts lead the way.   

  

We're going to create opportunities in the new economy for folks who haven't had their fair share. At Medgar Evers College, in Brooklyn – New York City's one historically Black college – we are going to create a health care career hub that focuses on training the community for the jobs that will grow from this point on, an accelerator program to jumpstart the careers of our next generation of health care workers. We'll deepen our commitment to the life sciences, an area of tremendous potential for New York City. We will invest to create a life sciences campus on the East Side of Manhattan, and then build it out all over the five boroughs. By creating LifeSci Avenue, we'll have a focal point for the life sciences industry of this city. And then, from there, so many other key areas of intense activity will grow just as we've seen with our technology sector. Today, in New York City, technology jobs account for over 350,000 New Yorkers’ livelihoods. Life sciences is going to build up fast, just as we saw with tech. We see this as an industry that could account for 100,000 jobs or more in the course of the next few years. We achieved that by investing public dollars, but also rallying and organizing the efforts of the extraordinary institutions that make New York City the single most impressive collection of talent and expertise in public health anywhere in the world. By ensuring that we become the public health capital of the world, we rebuild our economy, and we rebuild it with an eye towards fairness and sustainability.   

  

To bring back the jobs we need, we have to prioritize the communities hardest hit by COVID, and we ensure a fairer economy than we've ever seen before. We have to bend the work of government to fighting inequality. For that reason, we're going to make permanent our Task Force on Racial Inclusion and Equity. Leaders of color within the City government, building an agenda for their own communities, ensuring with urgency that every community gets its fair share. This is something that's been a game-changer in 2020, and it should be a permanent part of our government – a guarantee that equality will govern decisions. And to make sure we address the pain of the past, to make sure we uncover and attack institutional racism, I'm naming a Charter Revision Commission with a two-year mandate. This panel will act as a Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission as well. These leaders will do the work to ensure the structural racism is identified and solutions are clarified and acted on in this city. Around the world, in moments of truth, in moments of change, nations turned to truth and reconciliation commissions. Here in New York City, we can lead the way in our nation by speaking openly of the wrongs of the past, naming them, denouncing them, turning away from them, creating new approaches and making them the law. That will be the mandate of our Charter Revision Commission.  

 

To create a recovery for all of us, we'll focus on minority- and women-owned businesses, ensuring that when New York City invests in major new efforts to create housing for our people, minority- and women-owned businesses will lead the way. We'll focus on hiring people from the communities where the housing is being built to build the new jobs of the future. We're going to work in Albany on a community hiring economic justice plan, which will give us the right when there's new development in New York City to ensure that the people hired to do the work are from the very same neighborhoods where the development takes place. For too long, New Yorkers have watched tall, shiny buildings built in their own community, and yet nothing was there for them. This law will ensure that community residents benefit not just from the new housing, but from the jobs created as well. We're going to work constantly for a fair economy, and that means we must tax the wealthy, and we must redistribute the wealth of the city to those who do the work. Even during the height of the pandemic, we saw the stock market boom. We saw 120 New York billionaires grow their net worth by $77 billion in the course of 2020. We're going to work with our colleagues in Albany to ensure that money that has been earned during this pandemic goes to those who have suffered the most. We'll join the fight for higher taxes on the wealthy and a new billionaires' tax. These are the steps that can give us the resources needed to build a recovery for all of us.   

  

The next generation of economic growth demands more than just broadband connections. 2021 will be the year of 5G in New York City. The City will aggressively expand 5G infrastructure all across the five boroughs. And we're going to help revitalize small businesses directly. We're going to set up a small business recovery tax credit to keep their doors open, and, with stimulus funds, provide struggling small businesses loans to get them back on their feet. We'll cut the fines that used to afflict our small businesses and cut the red tape that they used to have to overcome just to get their work done and give them the ability to hire our fellow New Yorkers. We saw it with the Open Restaurants Program – by simplifying, by trusting small business, we're able to bring those restaurants back and save 100,000 jobs. We'll use that same approach to help small businesses all over the five boroughs. And to jumpstart our recovery, we're going to have a massive campaign to market our city to ensure that New York City is seen all over the world as exactly what we are, a place of extraordinary strength, and energy, and drive – a place that will determine the future. The future starts here in New York City. It is the place that people need to come. It is the place where people need to invest. We will show the world day by day and bring in the help we need to grow strong. All of these things are within our reach, if we're willing to build a new city.   

  

And so, this is where the story takes us – and the story is all about the people of New York City. The strength it will take – the focus, the energy that comes from our people – the same people who fought back through COVID – comes from the heart and soul of New Yorkers, the compassion and the decency of the people of the neighborhoods of this city. If you want to know if New York City is going to come back, and come back strong, and come back better, just listen to the voices of your fellow New Yorkers. They will tell the story.  


Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on State's Progress During COVID-19 Pandemic - JANUARY 28, 2021

 

8,520 Patient Hospitalizations Statewide

1,584 Patients in the ICU; 1,024 Intubated

Statewide Positivity Rate is 5.34%

162 COVID-19 Deaths in New York State Yesterday

 Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"New York State is once again making our way down the mountain after experiencing a holiday surge," Governor Cuomo said. "Our infection and hospitalization rates are steadily declining thanks to the actions of New Yorkers, but there is still more work to be done. While more vaccines are on the way from the Biden administration, we must continue actively working to protect our hospitals and their staff to help ensure they do not become overwhelmed. We are all feeling COVID fatigue, but New Yorkers have the tools to fight the war - wear a mask, social distance and avoid gatherings."

Today's data is summarized briefly below:

  • Test Results Reported - 250,668
  • Total Positive - 13,398
  • Percent Positive - 5.34%
  • Patient Hospitalization - 8,520 (-251)
  • Patients Newly Admitted - 944
  • Hospital Counties - 56
  • Number ICU - 1,584 (+26)
  • Number ICU with Intubation - 1,024 (-3)
  • Total Discharges - 124,976 (+973)
  • Deaths - 162
  • Total Deaths - 34,742

The Department of State and Division of Consumer Protection Warn of Email Phishing Scheme

 

Scammers Use Fake Email to Try to Get Users to Click on Fraudulent Link

 The New York State Department of State and the Division of Consumer Protection today warned New Yorkers of an email phishing scheme. These illegitimate emails ask recipients to verify their profile to avoid experiencing delay and future problems in renewing their license. The messages link to a non-listed URL. Anyone who received such an email should delete it right away.  

The following is a sample of the emails sent:

From: New York Secretary Of State [mailto:smbuck@csuchico.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2021 1:21 AM
Subject: Department Of State Important Notice

Effective January 30,2021 Department Of State,Division Of Corporations,State Andrew M Cuomo,Governor,Rossana Rosado.Secretary Of State require that all legally conduct businesses in the state should verify their profile to avoid experiencing delay and future problems in renewing their license in 2021

Please click on Validate Profile below to login to your account and begin the profile validation process.

VALIDATE PROFILE HERE

New York Secretary Of State

Note: This is an automated email. Do NOT reply to this message.

Phishing emails are fraudulent messages scammers use to obtain data or sensitive personal information. That information can be used to commit identity theft or trick the recipient into installing malicious software onto a computer or mobile device.

To help protect against phishing or smishing (SMS phishing) scams, the NYS Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) and the Division of Consumer Protection recommend the following precautions:

  • DO exercise caution with all communications you receive, including those that appear to be from a trusted entity.  Inspect the sender’s information to confirm the message was generated from a legitimate source.
  • DO keep an eye out for telltale signs of phishing - poor spelling or grammar, the use of threats, the URL does not match that of the legitimate site. If the message does not feel right, chances are it is not.
  • DON’T click on links embedded in an unsolicited message from an unverified source.
  • DON’T send your personal information via text.  Legitimate businesses will not ask users to send sensitive personal information through text message.
  • DON’T post sensitive information online.  The less information you post, the less data you make available to a cybercriminal for use in developing a potential attack or scams.

For more information on phishing scams, as well as steps to mitigate a phishing attempt, visit the NYS Office of Information Technology Services Phishing Awareness resources page at https://its.ny.gov/resources  or the Division of Consumer Protection Phishing Scam Prevention Tips page at https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/identity_theft/protect_yourself_from_identity_theft/phishing.html.

The New York State Division of Consumer Protection serves to educate, assist and empower the State’s consumers. For more consumer protection information, call the DCP Helpline at 800-697-1220, Monday through Friday, 8:30am-4:30pm or visit the DCP website at www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection. The Division can also be reached via Twitter at @NYSConsumer or Facebook at www.facebook.com/nysconsumer

Senator Rivera on Attorney General’s Office Scathing Report on Nursing Homes

 

 “While the findings in Attorney General James’ scathing new report about the state’s COVID-19 response at nursing homes across New York are disturbing, I am sadly unsurprised by them. As my team and I conduct an in-depth review of the report, it is critical that the Cuomo administration finally releases accurate data on nursing home deaths, which my colleagues and I have been requesting for months. Families who lost loved ones deserve honest answers. For their sake, I hope that this report will help us unveil the truth and put policies in place to prevent such tragedies in the future.” 


Attorney General James Releases Report on Nursing Homes’ Response to COVID-19


Investigations Reveal DOH Publicly Reported Data Undercounted COVID-19 Deaths and Many Nursing Homes Failed to Comply with Critical Infection Control Policies

AG Conducting Ongoing Investigations into More Than 20 Facilities

 Attorney General Letitia James today released a report on her office’s ongoing investigations into nursing homes’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March, Attorney General James has been investigating nursing homes throughout New York state based on allegations of patient neglect and other concerning conduct that may have jeopardized the health and safety of residents and employees.

Among those findings were that a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than the New York State Department of Health’s (DOH) published nursing home data reflected and may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent. The investigations also revealed that nursing homes’ lack of compliance with infection control protocols put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates. Based on these findings and subsequent investigation, Attorney General James is conducting ongoing investigations into more than 20 nursing homes whose reported conduct during the first wave of the pandemic presented particular concern.

“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” said Attorney General James. “While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to offer transparency that the public deserves and to spur increased action to protect our most vulnerable residents. Nursing homes residents and workers deserve to live and work in safe environments, and I will continue to work hard to safeguard this basic right during this precarious time.”

Background

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is the only law enforcement agency in the state specifically mandated to investigate and prosecute abuse and neglect of residents in nursing homes. In early March, OAG received and began to investigate allegations and indications of COVID-19-related neglect of residents in nursing homes. At the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo, on April 23, OAG set up a hotline to receive complaints relating to communications by nursing homes with family members prohibited from in-person visits to nursing homes and formally initiated a large-scale investigation of nursing homes’ responses to the pandemic. OAG received more than 770 complaints on the hotline through August 3, and an additional 179 complaints through November 16. OAG also continued to receive allegations of COVID-19-related neglect of residents through pre-existing reporting systems.

Overview of Findings

The report includes preliminary findings based on data obtained in investigations conducted to date, recommendations that are based on those findings, related findings in pre-pandemic investigations of nursing homes, and other available data and analysis. Based on this information and subsequent investigation, OAG is currently conducting investigations into more than 20 nursing homes across the state. OAG found that:

  • A larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than DOH data reflected;
  • Lack of compliance with infection control protocols put residents at increased risk of harm;
  • Nursing homes that entered the pandemic with low U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates;
  • Insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for nursing home staff put residents at increased risk of harm;
  • Insufficient COVID-19 testing for residents and staff in the early stages of the pandemic put residents at increased risk of harm;
  • The current state reimbursement model for nursing homes gives a financial incentive to owners of for-profit nursing homes to transfer funds to related parties (ultimately increasing their own profit) instead of investing in higher levels of staffing and PPE;
  • Lack of nursing home compliance with the executive order requiring communication with family members caused avoidable pain and distress; and
  • Government guidance requiring the admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities and may have obscured the data available to assess that risk.

Undercounting of COVID-19 Deaths in Nursing Homes

Preliminary data obtained by OAG suggests that many nursing home residents died from COVID-19 in hospitals after being transferred from their nursing homes, which is not reflected in DOH’s published total nursing home death data. Preliminary data also reflects apparent underreporting to DOH by some nursing homes of resident deaths occurring in nursing homes. In fact, the OAG found that nursing home resident deaths appear to be undercounted by DOH by approximately 50 percent.

OAG asked 62 nursing homes (10 percent of the total facilities in New York) for information about on-site and in-hospital deaths from COVID-19. Using the data from these 62 nursing homes, OAG compared: (1) in-facility deaths reported to OAG compared to in-facility deaths publicized by DOH, and (2) total deaths reported to OAG compared to total deaths publicized by DOH.

In one example, a facility reported five confirmed and six presumed COVID-19 deaths at the facility as of August 3 to DOH. However, the facility reported to OAG a total of 27 COVID-19 deaths at the facility and 13 hospital deaths — a discrepancy of 29 deaths.

Lack of Compliance with Infection Control Policies

OAG received numerous complaints that some nursing homes failed to implement proper infection controls to prevent or mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 to vulnerable residents. Among those reports were allegations that several nursing homes around the state failed to plan and take proper infection control measures, including:

  • Failing to properly isolate residents who tested positive for COVID-19;
  • Failing to adequately screen or test employees for COVID-19;
  • Demanding that sick employees continue to work and care for residents or face retaliation or termination;
  • Failing to train employees in infection control protocols; and
  • Failing to obtain, fit, and train caregivers with PPE.

For instance, OAG received a complaint that at a for-profit nursing home located north of New York City, residents who tested positive for COVID-19 were intermingled with the general population for several months because the facility had not yet created a “COVID-19 only” unit. At another for-profit facility on Long Island, COVID-19 patients who were transferred to the facility after a hospital stay and were supposed to be placed in a separate COVID-19 unit in the nursing home were, in fact, scattered throughout the facility despite available beds in the COVID-19 unit. This situation was allegedly resolved only after someone at the facility learned of an impending DOH infection control visit scheduled for the next day, before which those residents were hurriedly transferred to the appropriate designated unit.

OAG received reports that nursing homes did not properly screen staff members before allowing them to enter the facility to work with residents. Among those reports, OAG received an allegation that a for-profit nursing home north of New York City failed to consistently conduct COVID-19 employee screening. It was reported that some staff avoided having their temperatures taken and answering a COVID-19 questionnaire at times when the screening station at the facility’s front entrance had no employees present to take that information or when staff entered the facility through a back entrance, avoiding the screening station altogether.

At yet another facility in Western New York, a nurse reported to OAG that immediately prior to the facility’s first DOH inspection in late April, a nurse supervisor had set up bins in front of the units with gowns and N95 masks to make it appear that the facility had an adequate supply of appropriate PPE for staff. The nurse alleged that the nurse supervisor came in to work unusually early the day of the first inspection and brought out all new PPE and collected all of the used gowns. Although the initial DOH survey conducted that day did not result in negative findings, DOH returned to the facility for follow-up inspections, issued the facility several citations, and ultimately placed the facility in “Immediate Jeopardy.”

Nursing Home with Low Staffing Ratings Had Higher Fatality Rates

There are 619 nursing homes in New York, and 401 of these facilities are for-profit, privately owned, and operated entities. Of the state’s 401 for-profit facilities, more than two-thirds — 280 nursing homes — have the lowest possible CMS Staffing ratings. The Staffing rating reflects the number of staffing hours in the nursing department of a facility relative to the number of residents. As of November 16, 3,487 COVID-19 resident deaths (over half of all deaths) occurred in these 280 facilities. Some of these facilities have also been known to transfer facility funds to owners and investors, rather than use them to invest in additional staffing to care for residents.

Pre-existing, insufficient staffing levels put residents and staff at increased risk of harm during the pandemic. As nursing home resident and staff COVID-19 infections rose during the initial wave of the pandemic, staffing absences increased at many nursing homes. As a result, already-low staffing levels decreased even further, to especially dangerous levels in some homes, even as the need for care increased due to the need to comply with COVID-19 infection control protocols and the loss of assistance from family visitors. OAG’s preliminary investigations reflect many examples where for-profit nursing homes’ pre-pandemic low staffing model simply snapped under the stress of the pandemic.

OAG received a complaint from a resident’s son about a for-profit nursing home in New York City alleging that his mother was not receiving proper care because of critically low staffing levels at the facility. His mother was never tested for COVID-19, but later died while exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. Between late March and early April, the facility was so understaffed due to staff quarantining, working from home, and pre-existing low staffing, that the onsite management of the entire facility was left in the hands of just two nurse supervisors. During the week of April 5, 33 residents died at that facility, 15 percent of all its residents.

In addition, preliminary investigations indicate that when there were insufficient staff to care for residents, some nursing homes pressured, knowingly permitted, or incentivized existing employees who were ill or met quarantine criteria to report to work and even work multiple consecutive shifts, in violation of infection control protocols. These policies put both residents and staff at great risk.

Immunity Provisions

Despite these disturbing and potentially unlawful findings, due to recent changes in state law, it remains unclear to what extent facilities or individuals can be held accountable if found to have failed to appropriately protect the residents in their care.

On March 23, Governor Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA) provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is reasonable to provide some protections for health care workers making impossible health care decisions in good faith during an unprecedented public health crisis, it would not be appropriate or just for nursing homes owners to interpret this action as providing blanket immunity for causing harm to residents.

In order to ensure no one can evade potential accountability, Attorney General James recommends eliminating these newly enacted immunity provisions.

Attorney General James encourages anyone with information or concerns about nursing home conditions to file confidential complaints online or by calling 833-249-8499.

This report is the collective product of investigative work undertaken since March 2020 by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit's (MFCU) 275 attorneys, forensic auditors, police investigators, medical analysts, data scientists, electronic investigation team, legal assistants, and support staff in eight offices across New York. MFCU is led by Director Amy Held and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul J. Mahoney. MFCU is a part of the Division for Criminal Justice, which is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice José Maldonado and overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.

MFCU receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $60,071,905 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2019-20, of which $45,053,932 is federally funded. The remaining 25 percent of the approved grant, totaling $15,017,973 for FY 2019-20, is funded by New York state. Through MFCU’s recoveries by means of law enforcement actions and civil enforcement actions, it regularly returns more to the state than it receives in state funding.