More city workers = more city vehicles

From the NY Times:

If it seems like traffic in New York City might be a bit worse than before, there may be an unexpected factor: city workers.

New York City’s sprawling municipal work force is driving more than it used to, city statistics reveal. City vehicles logged 102 million miles on the road in the last fiscal year, which ended in June, 25 percent more miles than in 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office.

Accidents are also up: Workers driving city-owned cars for the Department of Buildings were involved in 98 crashes last fiscal year, an increase from 22 crashes four years ago. Department of Correction vehicles were involved in 116 crashes, nearly double the number four years ago. The Department of Transportation and Parks Department fared no better.

The city’s fleet — everything from take-home cars to garbage trucks — now exceeds 30,000 vehicles, 10 percent larger than when Mr. de Blasio took office.

De Blasio thinks he's doing more than Bloomberg did

From CBS 2:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has touched off a battle royal with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg over who is the biggest workaholic.

As CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, it began with de Blasio insisting that he needs way more top-dollar special assistants because his agenda is bigger.

“It’s about getting the work done,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio was just back from vacation Monday and apparently feeling pugilistic, as he metaphorically bopped former Mayor Bloomberg on the noggin.

De Blasio was defending is decision to hire nearly three times more high-priced special assistants than Bloomberg had. The current mayor laid down the gauntlet, challenging Bloomberg on his work ethic.

“We’re trying to do a lot,” de Blasio said. “I can’t tell you all the intricacies of the Bloomberg administration. I can tell you in this administration, we’ve put together very ambitious goals.”

Bloomberg had 109 special assistants, while de Blasio has 298.

“I can say on a number of items, we’re trying to do things on a bigger scale,” de Blasio said. “We’re running this government very differently, and we’re doing a number of things that weren’t touched at all in those years, and we’ve got to have the personnel to make it work.”

But former Bloomberg director of communications Bill Cunningham was quick to fire back.

“It’ a joke, right?” Cunningham said. “He’s trying to fill in for Jerry Lewis and Dick Gregory since they passed away.”

Questions about Sanitation spending spree

From NBC:

The city's Department of Sanitation has seen a 13 percent payroll increase under Mayor de Blasio, but New Yorkers have lodged 24 percent more 311 complaints about missed trash collection in that time, leading some residents to wonder if taxpayer money is being put to good use. Chris Glorioso reports.

City payroll is bigger than ever

From the NY Times:

New York City is undergoing a rare explosion in city government: More people now work for the city — 287,002 full-time employees as of July — than at any other point in its modern history, with thousands more scheduled to join them.

The projected growth finds few parallels in other major American metropolises; most, like New York, trimmed their numbers after the financial crash of 2008. Some have rehired, though not at the level that New York has under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

But behind all the job growth is a complicated set of factors that explain the possible benefits and costs to the city, the mayor and his supporters. Unions will see new jobs for their members, but the city will see future pension costs rise.

And even if the city fails to fill all its projected job openings, there is a benefit: An unfilled job can be taken off the budget, enabling the de Blasio administration to claim so-called savings from the absence of thousands of workers who were not hired.

Every major agency is growing under Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, but some expansions seem to stand out: His latest budget would have the Sanitation Department’s number of civilian employees increasing by a third since 2014; the Department of Citywide Administrative Services’ by 20 percent; and the city information technology department’s by more than 50 percent.

The growth in full-time staffing has worried some budget experts, who fear a lack of fiscal discipline at City Hall, and greater pension obligations down the road.

Fort Totten floor fall-through

From CBS 2:

A city worker fell through the floor of a crumbling old building in Queens.

The parks employee and his crew were sent in to clean after someone else decided the structure was safe.

The inside of the old building on the grounds of Fort Totten — a former U.S. Army site — has seen better days.

It’s now dilapidated and deserted.

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation employee Cory Credell said on Monday, he was asked to go inside and clean it up after the department’s health and safety team deemed the site safe for the job, CBS2’s Valerie Castro reported exclusively Tuesday night.

Once inside — wearing a paper mask he was given to protect his face — Credell said he knew it was trouble.

Animals had made the structure their home long ago.

Credell began to sweep the floors, but the weak structure gave way and he fell through.

An attempt to minimize patronage

From the Daily News:

City jobs would have to be publicly posted for two weeks before someone is hired under a bill set to be introduced in the City Council this week, in a move meant to cut down on patronage.

Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Brooklyn) is sponsoring the legislation to require 14 days of online job postings before interviews are done for government jobs.

Kallos said he wants to rein in patronage hiring at the city Board of Elections — where officials have long resisted calls to publicly post all their jobs.

It's nice to publicly post jobs, but they will reserve the positions for their friends and relatives anyway.

DOT caught speeding more than 500 times

From WPIX:

The wheels of government move fast.

Since the start of Vision Zero in 2014, city owned vehicles have racked up 11,367 summonses.

More than 500 of them were handed out to the city Department of Transportation, which implemented much of Vision Zero, an initiative to stem the spike in pedestrian deaths, according to a PIX11 analysis of citation records.

Cuomo looking to lift wages

From Crains:

Without mentioning Bill de Blasio by name, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that raising wages for city workers is part of his "two-pronged strategy" to get to a $15 hourly minimum statewide—and called on the other two citywide elected officials to push the city to lift its own wage floor.

"Reaching out to other businesses, reaching out to other government officials, asking them to come on board, asking Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James, bring the city of New York with us," Cuomo boomed at a rally in midtown. "Join this crusade."

The other part of the governor's approach is to persuade the state legislature to raise the statewide minimum to $15 over the next few years, he said as he announced that State University of New York workers will be the newest members of his $15 hourly minimum-wage club.

The governor has already raised wages for fast-food workers and state employees. The more than 28,000 SUNY workers affected across the state ramp up to the $15 minimum by 2021, or 2018 for those in the city.

De Blasio supports the push for a statewide $15 minimum wage, and in fact was an enthusiastic proponent of an increase before Cuomo was. But the governor has stolen the mayor's thunder, and by apparently calling for city workers to make $15 per hour has turned the tables on de Blasio, who previously established an $11.50-an-hour minimum for city workers. Any mayoral pledge to raise city workers' pay would now look like a response to the governor's call.

City employees rollin' in dough

From the Daily News:

Overtime pay gave nearly two hundred city employees a salary bonanza in the last fiscal year.

Most of these workers — spanning a range of city agencies — were able to double their earnings with the extra hours, according to the latest data.

All told, the city shelled out $1.7 billion just in overtime pay to 167,851 workers — and 195 actually doubled their salary, according to the numbers compiled by the Empire Center.

Most of those — 90 — were in the Department of Transportation, 35 at the Department of Correction and 26 in the FDNY.

Of the top five overtime earners — including many who have have been pulling down big bucks for years — four work for DOT and one for the FDNY.

DOT employee David Russell, a highway repair supervisor, scored the most overtime — $177,630. That raised his total pay to $274,352 for fiscal year 2015, which ended June 30.

Right behind him was FDNY marine engineer Frederick Domini, who earned $153,787 in OT and $262,926 in total pay.

DOT bricklayer Edward Alfano laid down $146,118 in OT, for $239,462 total pay,

HRA workers stole welfare and food stamp benefits

From the Daily News:

A pair of corrupt city bureaucrats ripped off more than $2 million in food stamps and public assistance over the last five years — even using stolen benefits to buy Red Bull in bulk and resell it, the city Department of Investigation announced Tuesday.

Two Human Resources Administration workers and 11 co-conspirators were arrested early Tuesday and charged with recruiting dozens of welfare recipients and others to game the system out of millions of taxpayer dollars between 2008 and 2013.

Cherrise Watson-Jackson, 44, an HRA supervisor, allegedly created fake electronic benefit transfer cards to generate $120,000, which was used to buy cases of Red Bull from BJ's Wholesale Club, according to charges filed in Manhattan federal court.

Watson-Jackson and her crew then resold the high-octane drink to small local grocery stores and split the proceeds, DOI alleged.

Another HRA employee, Petronila Peralta, 51, was caught allegedly generating more than $600,000 in bogus cash assistance benefits to 140 individuals between 2008 and 2011.

Peralta even paid recruiters to give welfare recipients cash to use their account information to generate fraudulent benefits, DOI said.

De Blasio scrambles to get lawmakers raises while city workers starving

Angelo Torres lives in his car.  Photo by Geoffrey Croft

From the NY Post:

But even if you wonder how someone can hit rock bottom while raking in a salary, however small, plus enviable fringe benefits, paid vacations, sick pay, the chance to earn overtime pay and a retirement pension, consider this: De Blasio, man of the people, is moving heaven and earth to boost the bottom lines of himself and his closest political allies.

In keeping with his penchant for creating new layers of government bureaucracy to find solutions for questionable problems, de Blasio announced this month that he has formed a three-member advisory commission to determine whether all city officials who are elected deserve to get the potentially fat pay raises they’ve been denied for the last eight years.

I’m not crying for city brass. The 51 members of the useless City Council each earns $112,500 annually, plus “lulus” — most get stipends between $5,000 and $20,000 annually for heading committees and subcommittees. Public Advocate Letitia James rakes in $165,000 a year, essentially for finding ways to make cops miserable. And does anyone know what the five borough presidents do to justify their $160,000-apiece annual pay?

And then there’s the mayor.

He gets paid $225,000 a year and lives rent-free with his family in Gracie Mansion, where a 12-person staff cooks, cleans and tends the yard, plus cops are on call to drive him around. (De Blasio’s spokesman said he’d decline a pay hike now, but the mayor opened the door to sharing in the wealth if he’s re-elected in 2017.)

But where is the committee to determine whether peons like [park worker Angelo] Torres deserve monstrous pay hikes?

DC 37 locals represent a total of 121,000 workers, and some full-timers earn as little as $24,000 a year.

Only the best and brightest

From Fox News/AP:

One applicant to be a New York City correction officer had been fired from his last job as a security guard for stealing. Another admitted he had regularly socialized with gang members. Another had debts of more than $400,000.

Yet all those candidates and dozens like them were hired last year to be part of the force overseeing nearly 11,000 inmates on Rikers Island, according to a yearlong city probe of jail hiring practices released Thursday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the findings hours before they were to be announced.

The probe found systemic problems with the Department of Correction hiring system, including no recruiting strategy for the past six years, that allowed an alarmingly high number of hires who had arrest records, gang ties or other red flags that are markers for corruption.

Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said the chronic problems of violence, smuggling and bribery that plague the city jails can all be traced to the character and qualifications of the employees.

City investigators randomly pulled 153 application files of guards hired last year and found that 54 — or 35 percent — "presented significant red flags that should have either precluded their hiring outright or required further follow-up."

The probe found 79 hired officers admitted having friends or family members who were inmates — including one with nine relatives who had done time in Rikers. Ten new hires had been arrested more than once, and another 12 had been rejected by the significantly higher standards of the New York Police Department, including six for psychological reasons and one who failed a drug test.

Everyone's got their hands out

From the NY Times:

A rosier-than-expected financial picture has left Mayor Bill de Blasio with an unanticipated predicament as he releases his first preliminary New York budget on Wednesday: how to hide a surplus that could easily exceed $3 billion.

The problem is not that the city does not have ways to spend it. Its 152 labor unions are demanding some $7 billion in back pay. Members of the City Council want to increase spending on social programs and repairs to public housing. And the mayor has his own ideas.

But if Mr. de Blasio acknowledges that there is extra money in the next budget, fiscal experts warn, it will become open season for different groups to make demands for it. “City Council members, member items — he doesn’t want a lot of time to go by with people coming up with their own priorities,” said Carol Kellermann, the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-backed watchdog group.

Hence, the ritual game of hide and seek.

On the eve of the budget presentation, Mr. de Blasio’s aides played down the likelihood of a big surplus, saying that such talk was exaggerated and that there were many potential risks to the budget, like the unsettled labor contracts and reduced support for the city from the federal and state governments.

In his State of the City address on Monday, the mayor warned that the city was “in the midst of a budgetary challenge that is unprecedented.”

Still, the numbers are the numbers: The Independent Budget Office projected in December that the city would have a surplus of $1.9 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

On top of that, the Bloomberg administration accounted in its financial plan for 1.25-percent-per-year raises for municipal unions in this fiscal year and the next one — putting aside some $730 million for that purpose. If that money is not spent on raises, it will be added to the surplus.

Moreover, each year, sometimes as early as February, the city’s administration adjusts its financial plan to reflect both anticipated income that did not materialize and planned expenditures that did not end up being spent. Typically, the result has been a net gain of several hundred million dollars.

City workers are raking it in

From the NY Post:

Municipal workers made nearly twice as much as their counterparts in the private sector in former Mayor Michael Bloom­berg’s last years in office — earning a median salary of $65,300 in fiscal year 2012, a new analysis found.

By comparison, median income for a private sector worker was roughly $34,100 that year, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.

The analysis was based on a little-noticed city report that had been quietly released on Bloomberg’s last day at City Hall.

The IBO found that while median city worker salaries stayed relatively flat over the past 10 years when adjusted for inflation, they climbed by about $6,000 between fiscal years 2005 and 2012.

“That small gain might look pretty good to a large share of the rest of the city,” IBO Chief of Staff Doug Turetsky wrote in a blog post.

That’s because private- sector salaries dropped by $3,000 on average over the same time period.

Despite the relatively steady state of municipal salaries, city payroll costs ballooned from $23.5 billion in fiscal 2003 to $37.2 billion in fiscal 2012, largely due to soaring pension and health-care costs.

City employees penalized for absence

From the Daily News:

Thousands of city employees who’ve been docked vacation time during the past week say the city should give them a break.

“It was very upsetting because we felt that everything that happened was out of our control. The storm was an act of nature,” said a hospital worker who said she couldn’t get from her home in the Bronx to Queens for her job.

Mayor Bloomberg ordered all city employees to report to work throughout the week – despite devastation from a hurricane and the challenge of commuting without buses or subways.

That’s proved next to impossible for some, who will lose vacation days as a result.

From the Huffington Post:

Their options were quite simple. Ride a bike through a hurricane (yes, there were 75 mile-per-hour winds and pouring rain), walk to work (because three hours in the pouring rain is a safe bet), or hitchhike. Any idiot needed only to look out of his window to realize how ridiculous a task this was - not to mention how unsafe any of the available options were.

Just as Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, and the Office of Emergency Management were advising people to stay off the streets, avoid transportation, and be cautious, they were sending their own employees to work. Talk about double standards.

What was the penalty for choosing to avoid putting oneself in harm's way by walking to work during a hurricane?

Employees were told that their absence would be counted as personal leave days. I read this as: "You'd better show up to work, and if you don't, we'll mark you absent." An entire city is shut down because of a storm that the Mayor himself describes as one of the worst in the city's history, and employees are penalized for not putting themselves in danger. This is an outrage.

To redress this, Mayor Bloomberg must take three steps.

First, he ought to issue a formal apology to all City employees who were unnecessarily forced either go to work, or use their personal leave days, on Monday and Tuesday. Second, he ought to compensate those who did attend work by paying them for overtime. Finally, he should return the personal leave days to those who chose to stay at home.

Bloomberg's dirty little secret: City hospital has no power

From Roosevelt Islander:

...received this tip from a reliable source:
Mike G question about ambulances and ambulettes headed north to Coler might be to transport some patients to Goldwater.

Coler having power probs
Goldwater has power and the room.
National guard moving 90+ patients.

16 ambulances making several trips for about 90 patients.

No mention of the problems at Roosevelt Island's Coler Hospital from Mayor Bloomberg.

And so the stupidity begins

From the NY Post:

While Gov. Cuomo was urging New Yorkers to stay home today, Mayor Bloomberg was telling city employees — including those in non-essential jobs — that it’s business as usual.

“City workers are here to help others. I think they all understand that,” he said.

A former city employee expressed outrage.

“So the MTA is shutting down public transportation until Wednesday, but all city employees are supposed to make their way to work?” the employee asked.

“How? By canoe along the rivers?”

Parks ok with hiring criminals

From the NY Post:

Advocates say the city Parks Department overlooks the sordid results of its background checks on job applicants — and even puts new hires in the field before the criminal screening is complete. 

“When you go into your public park, you should know if the person working there is a murderer, sexual predator or bank robber,” said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. 

Shockingly, even when the city is aware of an applicant’s violent past, the job seeker is not automatically rejected for work in the parks. 

A criminal record in and of itself does not disqualify an applicant,” agency spokeswoman Vickie Karp said. “If the offenses involve recent behavior, or if an applicant exhibits anti-social or disruptive behavior during the hiring process, we would decline to hire that person.” 

Karp said the city collects fingerprints, which are sent to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The state then checks for convictions through an FBI search. 

The background review continues during the term of employment if new details are brought to Parks’ attention, Karp said. She refused to say whether workers are put into the field before background checks are complete — which several Parks employees told The Post was common practice.

Public worker benefits are killing gov't services

From the NY Post:

Across New York, the cost of health benefits for retired government employees is growing so rapidly that it threatens to crowd out funding for essential government services. Rather than lay off police or close libraries, public officials may want to use their discretion to alter retiree health insurance — but some state legislators are trying to take away that discretion.

These lawmakers are introducing bills that would prevent government officials from reducing current benefit levels — in effect, forcing them to sacrifice core services instead.

In fiscal year 2012, New York City will pay $1.6 billion for health insurance for retired government employees — more than is budgeted for transportation and park operations combined. The state paid $1.3 billion for retiree health care in fiscal year 2011-12, as much as it gave to support the City University.

Retiree health-insurance costs are up 44 percent in the city budget and by a third in the state budget from just five years ago — and that’s still not enough to fully fund the future benefits that have been promised.

These unfunded liabilities are staggering — and growing. The most recent estimates are $84 billion for the city and $56 billion for the state. The Empire Center estimated the statewide unfunded liability at more than $200 billion in 2010.

New York City has the greatest liability because its health benefits are the most generous. It takes only 10 years of employment to vest for lifetime retiree health benefits, which begin upon retirement at any age and require no retiree premium contributions. The city even reimburses retirees over age 65 for the full cost of their Medicare Part B premiums.

Current law lets public employers make changes to health benefits. The only exception is for teachers in schools outside New York City; a 2009 law protects their retiree health benefits from reduction.

Now other unions are seeking the same protection. Six bills have been introduced in the Legislature to prevent state and local governments from reducing retiree health benefits unless public-employee unions agree to an equivalent reduction for their active members via collective bargaining — a highly unlikely event.

Their proponents claim these bills would have no fiscal impact because they provide no new benefits. But they would make it virtually impossible to save money at a time when the flexibility to grapple with pressing fiscal challenges is urgently needed.

As the costs of retiree health benefits grow, local governments and school districts across New York will have to choose between reasonable reductions in benefits or cuts in crucial services: police and fire, schools, roads and bridges, parks and so on.

Government retirees should always be treated fairly and with due respect for their public service, but it’s a mistake to tie the hands of state and local elected officials further. With health-care costs skyrocketing — and the unfunded liabilities already at staggering levels — they shouldn’t be put in a position where they have to lay off current workers and reduce services because they have no latitude in addressing retiree health-insurance costs.

FDNY employees want to be paid for perk

From the NY Post:

Most people would be thrilled if their boss gave them a company vehicle and paid for their commuting costs — but not these disgruntled city workers.

A group of angry FDNY civilian employees who are given department-owned trucks to drive to and from work sites at city expense are complaining that that perk isn’t enough for them — and filed a federal lawsuit demanding that they also be paid for their commuting time, according to court papers.

A judge has thrown out the wacky suit, but the FDNY workers are still mad that they weren’t given extra dough for something that costs most people an arm and a leg.

Since the workers make emergency repairs in firehouses and EMS stations, officials reasoned it would make sense for them to go to job sites directly from home instead of first taking the time to drive to where their work truck is parked overnight.

FDNY brass estimate that the program produces about $1 million a year in extra productivity.

But in 2007 more than a dozen of the FDNY workers filed suit.

The workers complained that before the program, they were paid from the minute they got into their trucks in their office parking lots to drive to the day’s job site.

Now that they can keep their trucks at home, they got paid only once they arrive at the job site.

They argued that, even though this meant zero commuting costs for the employees, they still should be paid as long as they were driving a city truck.