CM Wong questions Comptroller on water rental payments and most worrying budget assumption
Wong asks the Comptroller to audit water rental payments diverted to the general fund, which Levine agrees to work on. Wong also asks what single budget assumption worries Levine most; Levine identifies CityFEPs' exponential growth without a budget limit as unsustainable, recommending it be incorporated with a fixed price tag.
Councilmember Wong, followed by Brewer.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Comptroller Levine.
Good to see you, Councilmember.
Thank you.
My question goes back to the water rental payments.
The city continues to pull hundreds of millions of dollars out of the water system for the general fund.
They use it even though the original debt rationale ended years ago.
Will you audit the water rental payment and publicly show how those funds have been used?
I think it's a very important topic and I would love to work with you on it.
Thank you.
How about we meet on this and figure out a good plan together?
Absolutely.
Thank you, Councilmember.
I have time for another question.
You praise parts of the executive budget, but also warn it still depends on one-shots and does not solve the structural gap.
What single assumption in this budget worries you the most?
Child care?
City Phelps, peer-to-peer revenue, or something else?
Right.
Look, you had a robust conversation on CityFEP.
Right.
And I want to say this is an incredibly important program.
I'm very proud that New York City has the only essentially municipal Section 8 in the country.
There's something like 70,000 families being supported on it.
I do not want to cut that program.
But it's growing at a very, very fast pace, Councilmember, and it's not currently accounted for in the budget.
And that's not sustainable.
And so I think by simply bending the curve on the growth, we can both protect families who need it, but also get a handle on the budget impact.
So I'm going to identify that as a fast-growing budget area that we need to get a fix on this.
It needs to be properly budgeted.
And there's probably going to have to be some restraints on the pace of growth.
Because right now, like...
Is growing exponentially.
Yes, it is.
There's no end in sight in that, right?
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you, Councilman.
Thank you, Chair.
Great.
Councilmember Brewer, followed by Morano.