All we do, depends on you!
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Please meet at West 258th Street and Riverdale Avenue
 |
Questions? Email us at rmsabx@gmail.com
Our mailing address is:
Riverdale Mainstreet Alliance
444 W 258th St
Bronx, NY 10471-2102
Revenue projections are raised by improvements in economic prospects – provide opportunity to make different budget decisions, even as expected lower growth and questions of unbudgeted expenses remain
Today, the New York City Council released its February 2024 Economic and Tax Revenue Forecast, ahead of its hearings on the Mayor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Preliminary Budget, that estimates the City will receive $3.3 billion more in tax revenues for FYs 2024 and 2025 than projected by the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Management (OMB). The new estimates anticipate over $13.6 billion higher tax revenues than OMB throughout the Financial Plan years, averaging $3.4 billion in each of the outyears of FYs 2026-2028 ($2.73B in FY26, $3.02B in FY27, and $4.56B in FY28). The higher projections are driven by improvements in the national and city economic outlook, even as overall growth is expected to be historically slower than the past decade.
The Council Forecast projects this would lead the City to have a budget surplus of $1.32 billion in FY24 and $3.53 billion in FY25, and smaller, manageable outyear gaps of an average $550 million per year ($970 million in FY26, $646 million in FY27, and $35 million in FY28), with the $1.45 billion of in-year reserves currently budgeted for each fiscal year that must be expended within the same year incorporated.
The Council’s full report is available here.
“New York City’s economy has endured, and we now expect an estimated $3.3 billion more in revenue than the Mayor’s budget office for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, and even more in the outyears. This means we can and should be making some different budget decisions, protecting the priorities of New Yorkers,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan. “From 3K to CUNY, libraries, and our cultural sector, stronger than expected tax revenues allow us to restore the blunt cuts that weren’t necessary in the first place. Economic uncertainty, uneven employment growth, and a durable but slow burning recovery makes it critical to adequately prepare our city for potential challenges. It’s vital that we continue prioritizing essential and targeted investments that promote health, safety, and opportunity for all New Yorkers. As we head into preliminary hearings, we look forward to a productive dialogue with the Administration and other stakeholders as we work towards a budget that delivers for all New Yorkers.”
The Council’s average projected annual tax revenue growth rate for the coming fiscal years is 3.3 percent, which is far closer to the Independent Budget Office (IBO)’s projected growth rate (3.1%) compared to OMB’s (2.2%). However, this still represents a significant slowdown in collections compared to the 5.5% growth experienced by the City from FY10 through FY19.
Despite a national economy that has outperformed expectations, the Council expects slower growth for future years, due to the lingering impact of high interest rates and a labor market with rising unemployment peaking at 4.4 percent in 2025. Inflation is expected to gradually decelerate, leading the Federal Reserve to begin cutting the federal funds rate that lowers interest rates.
The City economy is expected to continue steadily growing, but the City’s labor market continues to cool and job gains have been uneven. Total employment growth slowed to 1.8 percent year-over-year in the final quarter of 2023, following 3 percent growth in the previous quarter. Health care and education sectors primarily drove city employment increases, while job levels in the retail, leisure and hospitality, and construction sectors remain below pre-pandemic levels. Low-wage jobs comprise an increasing share of employment, which is expected to moderate average wage growth. The Council forecast also revealed a slow real estate market expected to persist, without worsening, due to an elevated office vacancy rate projected to remain above 20 percent through 2028 and high mortgage rates depressing one-to-three family home sales.
Multiple budget watchdogs, including the city’s Independent Budget Office, have anticipated hundreds of millions of dollars in unbudgeted expenses left out of the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget for FY25 for a range of city programs. These include spending on CityFHEPS housing assistance vouchers based on FY24 spending levels, several Department of Education programs, and personnel costs in the uniformed agencies. The Council has raised concerns about these types of expenses being omitted in previous budgets, which will need to be addressed.
Good morning. Thank you, Pastor Culliver, for having me today. And thank you for having Kristen Clarke, our great Civil Rights Assistant Attorney General.
We are so grateful to be here with this congregation and this community.
The Justice Department owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the courageous activists who marched here in Selma 59 years ago. And to those who will march today.
There are many things that are open to debate in America. One thing that must not be open for debate is the right of all eligible citizens to vote and to have their vote counted.
The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all others flow. It is a right that members of this community bled for.
And yet, progress in protecting the right to vote — especially for Black Americans — has never been steady.
Indeed, throughout our country’s history — before Bloody Sunday, and after — the right to vote in America has been under attack.
It was under attack in the wake of the Civil War and amidst Reconstruction, when white supremacists used violence and threats of violence to stop Black Americans from exercising their right to vote.
It was at that time that the Department of Justice was founded, with the principal purpose of protecting the rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And in those first years the Justice Department was founded, it by successfully prosecuting more than a thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan.
But the right to vote was still under attack nearly a century later, when Black residents trying to register to vote in this county, and in jurisdictions across the country, were required to take nearly impossible tests that were designed to ensure that they fail.
And the right to vote was under attack on Sunday, March 7, 1965, when civil rights activists set out to march from Selma to Montgomery and were met with horrific violence.
The marchers’ courage helped usher into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave the Justice Department important authorities to protect the right to vote.
Because of that law, between 1965 and 2006, the Justice Department was able to block more than 1,200 restrictive voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of suppressing the vote.
But as you well know, court decisions in recent years have drastically weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act that marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge bled for 59 years ago.
And since those decisions, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative measures that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.
Those measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities; and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators.
Such measures threaten the foundation of our system of government.
Some have even suggested giving state legislatures the power to set aside the choice of the voters themselves.
That is not the way a representative democracy is supposed to work.
The right to vote is still under attack.
And that is why the Justice Department is fighting back.
That is why, one of the first things I did as Attorney General was to double the number of lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division.
That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.
That is why we are working to block the adoption of discriminatory redistricting plans that dilute the vote of Black voters and other voters of color.
We are holding accountable jurisdictions that fail to provide accessible vote centers for voters with disabilities.
We are defending the ability of private individuals — not just the government — to bring lawsuits under the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
We are joining with community groups and civil rights organizations across the country by intervening in cases to defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition on voter intimidation. And to defend the Act’s bar against voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or color.
There is so much more to do.
Yet, these are not the only threats our democracy is facing.
Today, threats to the right to vote have expanded to target not just the voters themselves, but the citizens we rely on to fairly administer voting. Not just elected officials, not just paid administrators, but also the local volunteers who ensure that voting is available in every precinct.
That is why I launched the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force to combat threats against election workers.
That is why we are aggressively investigating and prosecuting those who threaten election workers with violence.
Just last Tuesday, for example, an Indiana man pled guilty to threatening to kill an election worker in Michigan, falsely claiming that the worker had “frauded out America of a real election.” And just last Thursday, we arrested a California man who transmitted a violent threat against an Arizona election official, while falsely accusing that official of “cheating the election.”
Our democracy cannot function if the public servants and civic-minded citizens who administer our elections fear for their lives.
The Justice Department recognizes the urgency of this moment.
Defending democracy was the Justice Department’s founding purpose. And it is the foundation of everything we do today.
We recognize that community and civic leaders here, and across the country, are advancing that work, day in, and day out.
Our commitment to you is that we will never stop working with you, and for you, to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a vote that counts.
In an editorial published shortly after his death — and 55 years after he led marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge — John Lewis recalled an important lesson taught by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Democracy is not a state,” he said. “It is an act. And each generation must do its part.”
We promise you that we will do our part.
This generation’s Justice Department knows that you are doing your part.
We know that our democracy depends on it.
Thank you.
