Reboot City Hall

Part 1: Overview & Case Studies

Setting the stage: Why you should care about how City Hall functions

The Mayor is not a legislator who proposes and passes laws. The Mayor is a manager, who runs the largest City organization in the country. If it were a company, it would be one of the largest 15 employers in the United States, larger than JPMorgan Chase, Pepsi, and Deloitte. And one of the top 35 by revenues, larger than IBM, Boeing, or UPS. But, unlike those companies, it has suffered from poor management for nearly a decade. There’s a lot of catching up to do.

The City needs a visionary manager who can build the plane while flying it, and who can transform the government by bringing it into the 21st century, using the tools of management, technology, finance and the law. 

The current City Hall provides a clear counter-example. It represents the management the City doesn’t want, with its crippling dysfunctional relationships with its own agencies like the NYPD, unions like the UFT, residents of NYCHA housing, and virtually every segment of New York City’s population. This is poor leadership and mismanagement, plain and simple.  

As someone who’s spent 30 years working hands-on in fixing broken Government infrastructure bit by bit, from both the inside and outside, I know where the problems are and how to fix them. All our City needs is a Mayor at the helm that comes in, on day one, with a plan. No more pipe dreams; no more talk without action. 

It’s time for a real management plan for New York City. Here’s mine.

The following plan is divided into 5 parts, starting with this Overview/Case Studies section, which goes into detail about why the management of City Hall matters to everyday New Yorkers. Then, I’ll follow up with the 4 major ways NYC’s government needs a reboot: Management, the City Budget, Technology, and Revising the City Charter.

All of this is informed by my vision of what a successful City government looks like: 

• Develops a responsive “customer service” relationship with New Yorkers to deliver services faster, with lower friction, to more people

• Builds on the knowledge and experience of frontline workers and community organizations

• Prioritizes equity, health, and justice in all decisions

• Builds a team of diverse people who represent the diversity of the City

• Communicates with people where they are, in their preferred language 

• Establishes clear definitions and metrics for success by:

  • Publishing usable and meaningful data 

  • Being held accountable based on that data

• Prepares for resiliency against future crises

• Has integrated, collaborative management

• Develops user-friendly technology that permeates every government function

• Ensures that the basic nuts and bolts, like sanitation, work

• Organizes around the crossroads where many issues intersect, like education and families

• Meets communities where they are, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach

• Works from the bottom up to meet people’s needs

I know we can do it, because I’ve done it. With someone like me at the helm of our entire City government, I can bring this innovation city-wide. Here are some examples of how I’ve already made this city work better: 

In 2012, there was only a paper voter guide and no mobile tool to find your polling place or to learn about the candidates. Today, the NYC Votes program provides the online voter guide and other candidate information at voting.nyc.

While I was at the CFB, we faced another challenge: the reputation of the public matching funds program was in peril. Nearly every candidate who tried to use it suffered from onerous investigations and alleged violations from small-dollar credit card contributions. But in the 21st Century, credit card processing shouldn’t be causing that many problems. I knew we had to fix this, so I led the effort to streamline and digitize this process. The NYC Votes program now has a campaign contribution platform that nearly eliminates audit “flags.” 

It’s especially valuable for small campaigns and first-time candidates, saving them thousands of dollars and hours of time, and removes overhead and administrative costs for the government. Imagine if we were able to work this kind of efficiency into every government agency -- how much of our budget would be saved, and able to be re-allocated to direct services to residents? 

Example 2: You know the Queens West development at Hunters Point -- the big waterfront park in Long Island City? I was the first Director of Project Management and helped put the waterfront park, basketball courts, 2 residential buildings, and a public school in the ground. Did you know that it was the first community in the nation with Universal Broadband? We anticipated that people would need to work from home and students would learn from home...25 years ago. 

We also knew the climate was changing, and prepared the buildings so that it was one of only two NYC waterfront developments that didn’t lose power during Hurricane Sandy. There were two keys to this success. First and foremost, we intentionally softened the edge of the development to blunt and absorb the impact of superstorms and rising sea levels. This meant the waterfront park was explicitly designed to be flooded. Second, we built “bathtubs” around the foundations of the first buildings to prevent stormwater inundation. 

Example 3: Child Welfare is an unheralded government function that seeks to protect and uplift troubled families, but only gains attention when tragedy strikes. As the partner to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, I co-led the creation of Casebook, a social services platform that transformed child welfare in Indiana by empowering frontline workers with real-time collaboration and data analytics in an intuitive mobile application. Casebook is the child welfare system of record in the State of Indiana. I did this 10 years ago. Imagine if every emergency response agency in our government had access to a platform like this. 

“Art is able to create a vision about how to improve our world; he’s able to marshal resources to adapt and build support for that vision; and then to build the enthusiasm to enable partners to adopt the vision. Some people can do one of those things, very few people can do all three, and Art is one of them.

 

“With Art’s help, we achieved the dream of creating cutting edge technology for public child welfare systems, so they could do better by our country’s neediest and most vulnerable children and families. Without Art’s expertise, and guidance Casebook would have been an unfulfilled vision, and for that, I thank Art from the bottom of my heart.”

-   Kathleen Feely, former VP for Innovation, Annie E. Casey Foundation

Change is an art form. It requires creating consensus around a vision; fostering a courageous collaboration between front and back office and delivery teams; understanding tech, financial, and legal parameters; and then putting in place the key elements for sustainability, future enhancement and development. 

None of this is glamorous. But imagine how your life would change if the City government functioned like a well-oiled 21st-Century machine, rather than like a rickety rail line? Imagine if you could report something to 311 and get an immediate response. Imagine if your grandma could sign up for healthcare or vaccine appointments on a user-friendly website. Imagine if you had accurate, real-time information about buses, subways, escalators and elevators in stations, and more. 

That’s what you’re voting for on June 22.

My ultimate goal is to satisfy residents of New York City by building a government that works for everyone, through early and continuous delivery of solutions that have immediate impact. This takes a focus on communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect. 

When we do this, we will lower costs, AND improve outcomes, AND achieve better government transparency.

Part 2: Management & Leadership

NYC NEEDS A LEADER THAT CARES ABOUT MANAGING, NOT ABOUT NOTORIETY

The Mayor is not a legislator who proposes and passes laws. The Mayor is a manager who runs the largest City organization in the country. 

The City needs a visionary manager who can build the plane while flying it, and who can transform the government by bringing it into the 21st century, using the tools of management, technology, finance and the law. 

The current City Hall provides a clear counter-example. It represents the management the City doesn’t want, with its crippling dysfunctional relationships with its own agencies like the NYPD, unions like the UFT, residents of NYCHA housing, and virtually every segment of New York City’s population. This is poor leadership and mismanagement, plain and simple. 

Visionary Leadership. I will be a visionary leader of New York City. I will marshal resources to adapt and build support for that vision. I will build enthusiasm to enable partners to adopt the vision. 

Transformational and Participatory Management. As the Mayor, I will be a transformational manager who creates an environment that fosters innovation, and a participatory manager who will be heavily influenced by input from frontline workers and communities. 

 But it’s one thing to just say this; it’s another to actually execute that style of management. Here are the details on how I’ll execute it: 

1. BREAK DOWN THE DEPARTMENTAL SILOS

As the Mayor, I will reflect the interconnected nature of the city’s problems and opportunities in the organization of City Hall and the Mayoral agencies:

• Problems will be owned by small, integrated and empowered teams comprised of agency heads, with a self-selected lead.

• Problems will be organized by “lifecycles,” for example:

  • Public housing, homelessness, transitional housing and housing development

  • Maternal health, Universal Childcare, education, workforce development, aging

  • Mental health, health, environmental health, hospitals

• Problems will also be organized by “interconnections,” for example:

  • Mental health, domestic and gender violence, homelessness

  • Streets, restaurants and retail, open spaces, traffic, cycling, pedestrians

  • Poverty, education, economic opportunity, housing, health

• Deputy Mayors will sit at important intersections. My cabinet will include the following:

  • Safety and public health: moving from crisis response to community well-being

  • Equity: eradicating poverty by investing according to need

  • Public spaces: re-envisioning open spaces for the public

  • Environmental sustainability: Climate, energy, buildings, transportation

  • Government transformation

  • Arts and education

  • Economic development 

• Everyone, including government employees, should know who works for the city and in what capacity. I will create a searchable online directory and organizational chart that is open to the public. (More on that in Part 4: Tech.)

  
  

2. WORK WITH UNIONS

Unions are critical partners in our city’s recovery. I will be the mayor who forges a new labor-management relationship to leverage the collective knowledge and experience of the city’s frontline workers. I will invite the Municipal Labor Committee to have a seat at the table so that labor can be involved as decisions are developed, not after the fact. will work to align interests in both tough times and in good. 

3. PRIORITIZE HUMAN RESOURCES

I will bring City Hall’s human resources function into the 21st century in order to leverage the knowledge and experience of the citywide workforce. 

• Every city employee deserves the opportunity for professional development and advancement. I will implement basic employee management functions like periodic, 360-degree reviews and continuous feedback. 

• Every parent who lives in NYC will benefit from my Universal Child Care initiative 

• Every employee with student loans will benefit from my plan to create a citywide refinancing vehicle for student loans

• We will need insights from everyone for how the city can improve its services for the benefit of residents and to cut costs and eliminate inefficiencies. 

• I will conduct periodic surveys of the workforce and publish the results.  

• Every city employee deserves a workplace that is safe and free from discrimination and harassment. We will strengthen the city’s EEO policy, practices and review processes, as well as implement audits to ensure parity in pay and other benefits. 

• I will hire with the goal to ultimately reflect the composition of the city in the city’s workforce. It will better reflect the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of the city at every role over the course of my administration.

• City employees will be held to a higher standard with respect to online activities related to hate speech and association with organizations fomenting hate.

 Part 3: The City Budget

Great ideas are just pipe dreams unless we can figure out how to pay for them.

There is no question that the City’s fiscal situation deserves serious scrutiny. As the Mayor, I will look at every opportunity to reduce costs while improving direct services. 

There’s a lot of talk of revenue shortfalls and the next Mayor having to deal with budget cuts. But looking at the facts: the City budget grew by $18 billion (in 2020 dollars) under the current administration -- where did that money go? Some went to worthwhile investments, like ~$3 billion to Universal Pre-K. But most of that growth was the result of mismanaged overhead, with a siloed organization that resulted in duplicative services. I will identify these inefficiencies, eliminate them, and reallocate budget to frontline services. 

Based on my analysis, I believe there is $10 billion in administrative bloat worked into our current city budget from 8 years of mismanagement. 

We must plan to do more with less. This means streamlining services. Here are some examples:

• Restaurants: coordinate inspections from the current eight per month to two

• Benefits determination and distribution: automate this entire process, starting with SNAP and WIC

• We must spend additional funding wisely. The NYS Legislature and Congress have provided funding streams that we can’t take for granted. I will ensure that this funding is invested with minimal additional overhead costs, and that we think creatively about how to maximize its impact. 

It’s not just how we spend the money; it’s who we spend it on. Which organizations the City partners with, and how they treat those organizations during those partnerships, is instrumental to utilizing the City’s money efficiently and effectively. 

• Nonprofit providers must be treated like partners. This relates to deep coordination of services, as well as all the processes for procurement, billing and payment. 

• Partnering with the private sector, from universities to nonprofits to small businesses, will be essential to re-starting the economy. 

• Procurement is 22% or $20 billion of the budget, larger than any Mayoral agency. 

  • I will bring this function into the 21st century with a shift to smaller contracts, increased spending on small- to mid-sized businesses, especially MWBEs, and an emphasis on agile, cloud and platform technologies. 

  • I will also move to consolidate procurement across agencies into a centralized function to drive cost efficiencies. 

  • One of the largest expense items is the City’s health insurance, which has not been repriced in eight years; I will put this out to bid within the first 90 days. 

  • I will also modernize the Doing Business With Database to ensure more timely and complete reporting for potential conflicts of interest.

In addition to working with the City budget itself, the Mayor has the tools and capabilities of finance, law, and a megaphone heard round the world at their disposal. These tools should be used to help solve problems for our residents. Here are three top examples:

• Solve the eviction crisis through working with mortgage brokers, and the property tax delinquency crisis through the debt markets.

• Increase the City’s real asset portfolio to address homelessness and low income housing through the strategic use of the City’s first lien position on tax delinquencies.

• Use pooling and cross-collateralization to lower interest rates of various debts.

With proper management of the City budget, we will have no excuse to not fund the social services our city truly needs, like Universal Childcare, building massive amounts of Affordable Housing, and more.

PART 5 - REVISE THE CITY CHARTER

New York City’s Governance Needs a Reboot. New York City lacks the balance of powers and checks and balances of a healthy democratic system. After I’m elected, I will call for a City Charter Revision Commission to recommend fundamental changes to City Hall. Among the key issues:

• No Mayor should have sole power to appoint the Cabinet. I believe that the City Council should serve as a confirmation body for key Mayoral cabinet appointments, similar to how the US Senate approves Presidential appointments, starting with the DOE Chancellor and NYPD Chief.

• No single person should have sole power over disciplinary matters, as the Police Chief currently holds. I believe there should be a separation of powers: 

  • a semi-autonomous civilian complaint intake and investigatory body, that would also handle agency audits 

  • an autonomous adjudicatory body or an enhancement of OATH

  • this would focus on NYPD and Corrections, but be applicable to all other Mayoral agencies

  • insubordination and other HR issues would remain under Mayoral control

• No agency should be exempt from Open Data rules and all City data should be considered public except (as determined by law or by exemption by the City’s Corporation Counsel).

• I will create a citywide plan online, updated at minimum yearly, that maps proposed and planned real estate development, street enhancements, parks and open spaces and transportation. 

• I will create an Equity Scorecard, to measure the stresses experienced by the most vulnerable populations and the Mayor’s performance 

• I will present a Digital Bill of Rights, as described above, created in collaboration with and approved by the City Council.