CM Lewis questions OMB on deed theft prevention and capital delivery reforms

Thank you, Chair.

I'm back again.

I'll make it quick.

The mayor has taken major action on the deep theft crisis by establishing the Office of Deep Theft Prevention to protect vulnerable homeowners in central Brooklyn and southeast Queens.

Part of my question is for DOF, but I wanted to know from an OMB perspective, how does this office interact with

HPD's new mortgage assistance program, if at all, and how does the office differ from the enhanced existing services provided through citywide council initiatives, such as the estate planning

and resolution initiative and foreclosure prevention programs?

And is the administration committed to working with the council to scale up and design the Office of Deep Threat Prevention?

My last question, the city has historically struggled to fully execute its capital program with the capital commitment rate falling from 78.3%

in FY24 to 67.7% in FY25.

As OMB continues to expand the size of the capital plan, what reforms are being implemented to ensure that agencies can actually deliver projects on schedule?

And has OMB considered increasing appropriations without improving?

Without improving the

delivery capacity and will continue that will continue to inflate projects costs and delay community benefits that's all thank you so

you're reaching back into my prior lives on these two questions it's a good thing yeah so d theft when I was commissioner was a big focus as well at the Department of Finance it was

really a holistic view and I have no doubt that you'll hear from Commissioner Lee when he testifies that it's a holistic approach.

Of course, we'll work with other agencies, HPD, if they have information that can be brought to light that helps us combat d-theft.

We know that working with the Sheriff's Office under new leadership as well, we can look at that, the Land Records Division within the Department of Finance.

Can we see whether there are

Is there technology that could be used to be able to see the land records and patterns that are being, when a deed sort of transfers over?

There was, I think, a proof of concept to look at things like blockchain technology, to look at that.

So there are a number of things that could be brought in, including creative technological tools, but then also working with other agencies and clearly law enforcement.

For those investigations and how they're supported.

So it is a commitment, and I have no doubt that Commissioner Lee will talk about the broad strokes of how they're going to approach it.

With respect to your second question, I mean, I think that this is something we're continually improving on, delivery of capital projects.

I would

I oversaw a capital process reform task force that brought together leaders from the industry, MWBEs, all.

stakeholders'labor in our capital construction universe and being able to say, how can we streamline certificates to proceed?

How can we have greater visibility into where the blockages or logjams are in those submissions?

There's a new system that OMB has where we communicate regularly with agencies and say, hey, this CP is outstanding.

You owe us some information on XYZ.

Let's figure out how to get that and move that along.

We've shortened the number of questions and time period to get to those points.

We looked at things like blanket, you know, capital eligibility and so on and so forth.

So there are a lot of things that are going on to improve, clearly more to do, but the word is out with the agencies that we could, you know, speed things along.

And OMB as well, it's our responsibility too to make sure that when a certificate to proceed is on my desk, we're moving it as fast as possible.

All right, so we look forward to that.

Thank you for your response.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Great.

Councilmember Brewer, followed by Banks, and then Murano.