Skip to content
Council Discourse

NYC Council meetings, chaptered and linked by time.

Q&A

Chair Stevens Questions OMNY Card Spending and Distribution

New York City Council · May 28, 2026 · starts 4:08:18 · 4 min 26 sec

Chair Althea Stevens asks about the actual spending and distribution tracking of the $11 million budgeted for OMNY cards for youth program participants.

Luisa Linares

It was a it's about these dog on oh, here it goes.

Luisa Linares

Sorry.

Luisa Linares

Okay, so my next question is just around um what is the actual spending for uh the Omni cards um budgeted at 11 million for the army cards and how many providers and you've received the cards?

Luisa Linares

Oh, I'm sorry, I should have had you.

Luisa Linares

We were really trying not to do uh shirt like the shuffling, it didn't work out the way we can you repeat that if you're asking about um what was the actual what was this actual spending for FY26 budgeted for the 11 million for the omni cards?

Luisa Linares

How many providers and you've received those cards and does the agency receives any reports from providers on a distribution of those cards?

Luisa Linares

So I was I will let um Valerie speak more to the distribution and providers and receive, but I can tell you that in last year we um spent about $4 million towards the OmniCards.

Luisa Linares

Okay.

Luisa Linares

Yeah, and that funding went to uh about 80,000 cards.

Luisa Linares

Participants need multiple cards to get through the summer, so it was for about 40 participants, 40,000 participants that we purchased cards for, and they were distributed to 90 providers, and we have very tight policies around the providers' responsibility of tracking which participants get the cars, how many cars they've distributed, where they store them, and they report all of that back to us on a regular basis, and then we use that information to take into account the need uh for each following program cycle.

Luisa Linares

Okay.

Luisa Linares

Um this is wait.

Luisa Linares

Oh, it's 216.

Luisa Linares

I'll stop.

Luisa Linares

Okay, so we are short for time and I don't want to go over any more, but we I still have a ton of questions.

Luisa Linares

We'll be sending them over to you guys.

Luisa Linares

We want to make sure that we know that we're going into negotiations, but please do not let that hold up getting these questions because we really want to get through it.

Luisa Linares

Um, and so we'll be sending them over as soon as possible.

Luisa Linares

And I know there was even colleagues who have questions, so we'll be sending those over, and please make sure that we're working in tandem to get this done and not let negotiations get in the way of that.

Luisa Linares

So, thank you guys for being here today, and I'll pass it back over to Cherry.

Luisa Linares

Oh, okay.

Luisa Linares

I mean, you basically said it all.

Luisa Linares

Very efficient time.

Luisa Linares

So thank you so much.

Luisa Linares

I just want to thank you all again for being such great partners.

Luisa Linares

Yeah, I think thank you so much.