Talk Bronx New York

Increased Flow of Council Grants to Private Groups Leads to a Backlog 

Speaker Christine C. Quinn said, “It’s fair criticism to say there wasn’t enough vetting of capital budget allocations” in the past.

 The Northeast Bronx Development Corporation received City Council grants of $4.7 million despite a troubled financial history.

Increased Flow of Council Grants to Private Groups Leads to a Backlog 

An Orthodox Jewish school in Queens was to get $500,000 for a swimming pool. A social service agency in Queens plagued by financial mismanagement was set to receive $100,000 for a shelter and a van.

A nonprofit corporation in the Bronx that has filed only one tax return in nine years was to be granted more than $4.7 million for a housing complex, a community center and a hip-hop museum.

Every year, the City Council receives a huge wish list of requests for capital project money for local organizations. And in recent years the Council leadership has deemed some $500 million in projects worthy of public finance, even projects that are sometimes parochial, overly ambitious or sponsored by organizations with spotty financial histories.

Investigators reviewing Council spending have focused on grants that community groups receive to offset their operating expenses. But the capital budget that legislators use to finance big-ticket items like new buildings or buses is a larger pot of money: a half-billion dollars versus $360 million. And for years it has been shrouded in bureaucratic secrecy.

Once, council members rarely used their capital money to do more than finance a pet project within a city agency, perhaps road repaving in their districts. But increasingly, larger amounts of taxpayer dollars have been set aside for church groups, nonprofit groups and other private organizations, earmarked by council members to buy these groups equipment or renovations, or sometimes new buildings.

The practice has grown so expansive that the city has hired extra staff to shepherd the projects, which are often fraught with legal complications. Hundreds of groups approved for the money, meanwhile, have never received it. Some requests have been stalled because of constitutional questions over the separation of church and state, others because the groups did not have the financial or technical means to carry out the project — even with city aid. Many simply languished, yet remained on the books, year after year.

In fact, the backlog has grown so big that last year the Council and the Bloomberg administration stopped financing any new capital projects for private groups until they could develop a better way to choose which programs deserve the money.

“We really had to find a way to get this under control,” said Speaker Christine C. Quinn. “What was happening is the money was getting put in the budget and then it wasn’t moving, which is really a waste.”

The unspent money could have gone to schools or libraries or health clinics, Ms. Quinn said.

Advocates say it would be wrong, however, to view the broad expanse of capital spending on nonprofits as wasteful.

“Without city assistance, the not-for-profit sector would not be able to maintain the quality of facilities that are necessary to meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable citizens of New York,” said Ronald Soloway, director of governmental relations for the UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

The city’s capital budget is meant to finance permanent improvements to its infrastructure, like new buildings or bridges, or expensive equipment like buses. As with the operating budget, the mayor’s office sets aside a portion of the capital budget for the Council to spend as it deems fit.

The Council spends most of its money on public schools, libraries and parks. But increasingly over the last five years, resources have been directed to outside nonprofit groups. The current capital budget shows at least 570 projects totaling more than $490 million, though the city no longer supports many of the projects.

Many of those projects that never came to fruition had sailed through a review process that required only minimal vetting and that the City Council used for many years to set spending priorities, according to city records and interviews. Only after the money was allocated and on the books did the vetting process really begin.

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The City Council’s Biggest No-Shows

After Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster, a Bronx Democrat, missed an important vote on congestion pricing this week because of a flight delay, a closer look showed that she has the fifth-poorest attendance record on the City Council — about 72 percent, not counting absences for medical reasons.

So who has the worst record? That distinction goes to another Bronx Democrat, Maria Baez. Ms. Baez, who chairs the Council’s State and Federal Legislation Committee and serves on about half a dozen other committees, has missed 203 of 608 hearings and full Council meetings since 2004. Only 19 of her absences were excused, for an overall attendance rate of 66.61 percent, according to Council records.

The average Council attendance was about 84 percent, the records show. Before joining the Council in 2002, Ms. Baez was a community activist and served as chief of staff to Assemblyman Jose Rivera, the Bronx Democratic party boss who was a former councilman.

Edging Ms. Baez for second worst was Councilman James Sanders Jr., a Queens Democrat, at 66.9 percent. Ms. Baez and Mr. Sanders did not immediately respond to requests for comment this morning.

The gold star for attendance goes to Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who made 98 percent of his committee hearings and Council hearings. Interestingly, Mr. Avella — who is among the first announced candidates for mayor in 2009 — was one of only five members who in 2006 voted against bumping the Council’s base salaries to $112,500 from $90,000. Ms. Baez had an excused absence that day.

Here is a list of attendance percentages for all sitting council members. The records, supplied by the Council, are from 2004 on — or from the date the member joined the Council if it was after 2004 (as noted in parentheses next to the member’s name).

(Note: After this chart was initially published, Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan pointed out that her 84.48 percent rating did not account for her maternity leave, which accounted for 35 absences. Remove those, she said, and her attendance record shoots up to 94 percent. Another Council member, Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, also took maternity leave, causing her to miss 28 meetings. With those meetings removed, her attendance record goes from 79.37 percent moves up to 83.7 percent. A third Council member, Thomas White Jr. of Brooklyn, had 13 medical absences; not counting those, his attendance record would have improved to 80 percent from 75.82 percent.)

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