Rule Making and Spending Transparency Secured by Council Member Kallos

Mayor’s Management Report Now Complies Better with City Charter Mandates

New York, NY – Yesterday, the Mayor’s Office of Operations announced that agency rule making and agency spending would now be more transparent with their inclusion in the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) in response to requests by City Council Committee on Government Operations Chair Ben Kallos. The City Council also announced that it had sent a response to the MMR questioning indicators and performance with recommendations on improvements for the city.

“New Yorkers should know how their tax dollars are being invested to improve our city. The Mayor’s Management Report must show ‘the relationship between the program performance goals [and] corresponding expenditures’ as mandated by the Charter,” said Council Member Ben Kallos. “Thank you to the Director of Operations Mindy Tarlow for her partnership and commitment to improving the management of our city and reporting to the public.”

“Performance Budgeting” mandated by the Charter for inclusion in the MMR was pushed for by Chair Kallos. The definition of “Numeric Target” has been expanded to mean “an expected level of performance, a maximum level not to be exceeded, or a minimum level to be met,” which has led to an ongoing request by Kallos that numeric targets include designation of expected versus maximum versus minimum level of performance.

Questions focused on the number or copies printed, viewed, and downloaded as well as an apparent increase in agencies receiving scores of 100 on Customers Observing and Reporting Experience (CORE) and an absence of Internal Controls that were expected from certain agencies along with other items.

The MMR is mandated by the City Charter to be released in September of every year, preceded by a Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report, with reports on over one thousand indicators for the current versus preceding fiscal five years.

Watch the hearing on the City Council website.

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