Chair Lee Opens DYCD Executive Budget Hearing

Um, I think we are good.

So thank you so much for joining us.

We're just gonna take a quick break.

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Oh, were we nice?

Yeah.

You survived?

It was great, thank you.

Thank you.

I'll be back, I'll be back.

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Sorry.

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Just a reminder, everyone, please do not approach the dais.

Please do not approach a dais at any point.

No food or beverages are allowed in this room.

Please find your seats.

Just a reminder no one may approach the day is at any time, and no food or beverages are allowed in this room.

Sorry.

I have my snacks.

Waiting for okay.

Okay, I think we can go ahead and get started.

Um, so good afternoon and welcome to today's second hearing uh about the FY27 executive budget.

And I'm Councilmember Linda Lee, and today we will hear from Department of Youth and Community Development.

And I'm pleased to be joined again by my colleague, uh, Councilmember and Chair Althea Stevens.

And we have been joined by the Deputy Speaker, Councilmember Maloney, Councilmember Epstein, Councilmember Wong, and Councilmember Felder.

Um, and welcome, Commissioner uh and your team, and thank you so much for joining us today to answer our questions.

And I just want to note it's really cool that the three of us have all this uh former nonprofit experience, and I think there need to be more of us in government spaces, so I'll just say that.

I will just say that.

Um May 12th, 2026, the administration released the executive financial plan for FY26 through 2030 with a proposed fiscal 27 budget of 124.7 billion.

The Department of Youth and Community Development's proposed FY27 budget of 1.62 billion represents 1.3% of the administration's proposed fiscal 27 budget in the executive plan.

This is a decrease of 14.2 million or less than 1% from the $1.63 billion originally budgeted in the FY27 preliminary plan.

This decrease results from several actions, including savings the agency found through elimination of certain consulting contracts, vacancy reduction, cola adjustments, and underspending in community resources for employment and development and development and the ONS programs.

This was slightly offset by addition of funding to expand services for the crisis management system program and the supporting wraparound services.

As of April 26th, DYCD's actual headcount of 626 is 71 less than their fiscal 26 budgeted headcount of 697.

In the council's preliminary budget response, we called on the mayor to add 4.14.2 million to DYCD's budget to invest in expense funding for programs related to runaway and homeless youth, peer navigators, and runaway homeless youth housing navigators.

Although these requests were not included in the plan, we remain hopeful that today's hearing will give us the opportunity to discuss a path forward to secure funding for these programs.

And now I want to turn it over to my co-chair for the hearing, um, Chair Stevens.