CM Hankerson questions OMB on Parks baseline funding and 1% goal timeline

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon, Director.

The Council has, for many years, called on the administration to baseline one-shots for a variety of initiatives within the Parks Department, specifically for headcount, including...

PEP officers, forestry workers, green thumb workers.

We were happy to see the executive plan included baseline funding for some of these.

Does the administration plan to baseline the remaining one-shot positions in the budget, which would include PEP officers, which are desperately needed right now, as well as

green thumb programming and tree stump removal programming, which is near and dear for my district in Southeast Queens?

Thank you, Councilmember, for your question.

We were proud to put up the $15 million for parks and baseline it and not wait until adopted budget negotiation.

to be able to deal with that.

That's going to fund urban park rangers, going to fund forestry management and other parks workers.

We know that it's been highlighted that PEP officers also need funding, and so we look forward to discussing that with you and with the council in the next few weeks.

From your estimate, do you believe that the administration will baseline?

We are happy to talk about more investments in parks.

You know, the mayor has and has always talked about more investments in parks.

We know we have a 1% goal that the mayor has committed to during his mayoralty, before the end of his mayoralty.

And so we'll continue to talk about ways to invest in this great public amenity.

Well, I'm glad that you brought that up.

So, given the mayor did make a commitment to getting parks to the 1%, what is the administration's plan to get there within the term?

We obviously came into office, we faced a staggering $12 billion gap.

As mentioned in my testimony, we worked really hard to make sure that we were able to stabilize the city's finances.

Now that we've done that, we've done that without...

Without increasing the property tax.

We've done that without rating reserves.

We've done that without slashing services.

So as we become more fiscally stable, we can talk about the investments that we need to make.

We've still carved out of all the expenses that we've added this funding for parks.

We've carved out money for libraries, for cultural, things that would typically have waited for adopt.

And we baselined it because we believe in those investments in our institution.

And not to cut you off.

We'll get there.

I believe that.

What exactly is the plan?

You spoke about what you all have done, which I think is amazing.

But given that you've been able to do that, I'm sure that there's some plan to be able to get to where we need to be with parks.

This is the beginning of putting up the $15 million in the executive budget.

As we move forward, the plan in terms of overall budget, continuing to pursue savings and opportunities, and then looking where we can free up funding to make those investments.

If I may just one final question, if that be the case.

How can you say that we'll get there within the term if there's no plan to get there within the term right now?

If you're saying we need to see where we can pull from, but the commitment has already been made now twice, once that we would get to 1% and now that we'll get to the 1% within the term, but there's no plan, I'm kind of lost here.

Our goal is to meet that 1% before the end of the mayoralty.

At the same time, the twin goal is to make sure the city is financially stable, to be able to make the kind of investments that both you and I

and I agree need to be made in our parks.

So it's an ongoing effort, and we're going to work with the council as partners on that.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Councilmember Mealy?