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At a recent news briefing announcing the consolidation of the city’s technology agencies, Mayor Eric Adams leveled a time-worn accusation at city government, typically expressed by fiscal watchdog groups and disgruntled New Yorkers.
“Taxpayers are just not getting their money’s worth,” he told reporters on Wednesday, later adding without proof, “Trust me there's fraud and mismanagement in these agencies and we need to go after them.”
Under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, the number of full-time city employees grew to more than 337,000 — its highest level in history — as the city’s budget rose to a record $103 billion with the help of federal stimulus funds. As he settles in as the chief executive of the biggest municipal workforce in the country, Adams has painted New York City’s bureaucracy in blistering terms, accusing its agencies of dysfunction, incompetence and mismanagement.
For all the talk of wealth inequality, helping the poor, etc, etc the truth is most of the money spent goes towards vast bureaucracies which prove loyal voting blocs rather than the poor. If we just gave people money instead (calling Andrew Yang...) we'd actually save money in spades and help the poor.
For all the talk of wealth inequality, helping the poor, etc, etc the truth is most of the money spent goes towards vast bureaucracies which prove loyal voting blocs rather than the poor. If we just gave people money instead (calling Andrew Yang...) we'd actually save money in spades and help the poor.
I agree with you to a point but....and this is a big but.......anymore money going to the needy
and they will be titled the new middle class while the working middle class drops to the
new needy class.
I wish that all people experience an equal comfort
level in life but I was raised understanding that
People that work hard should by right have a better
standard of living that people who do not work at all.
337k municipal workers--what on earth do they all do? That is a larger population than most cities, and I don't see better services than elsewhere.
1. Some positions are there because they are mandated by the unions. There is no reason why they are there, but since it is written in the union contract, the city must staff those positions. The classic trope of one guy digging a hole while six others watch him work (this extends beyond construction and is mostly prevalent at MTA and DEP).
2. Some positions are there simply because the department implemented some kind of new bureaucratic process or new requirements/new forms that now you need people to sort out. Bloat of administrative staff. This effects most departments, but is mostly prevalent in Department of Ed. that has a huge bureaucracy outside of teachers. Full office buildings of them. A lot of units are staffed with people who process some obscure government forms or internal agency documentation, etc.
3. Every new administration (mayor/governor/federal) implements some kind of their own new initiative. Those never go away. Deep in the bowels of New York City government there are still employees plugging away at something that some mayor had an idea about ~20 years ago. That thing never went away, and was just incorporated into a bigger department. We got everything from the Office of Nightlife to Burial Services assistance. Most of the things are very niche, and majority of New Yorkers will never encounter them or don't even know they exist.
4. Increased scope of government. Every year the scope of services and mandates that NYC provides increases. Power creep if you will. Just to give a tiny example: by court order NYC is now required to provide translation services in ALL languages. Now, in other cities, they just translate into major languages - like Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic or whatever, but since NYC must translate into all languages, and we get people from all over, our translation costs are probably 100x higher than any other American city. Its very hard to find translators who speak southern Mexican Mixtec language or some obscure language from the jungles of Papua or African bush.
Last edited by Gantz; 01-26-2022 at 08:52 AM..
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Good luck with that.
