NYC Council charter commission wants to up funding for oversight agencies

The Charter Revision Commission convened by the New York City Council unveiled a handful of ballot proposal recommendations Friday aimed at beefing up the budgets of independent oversight agencies like the Department of Investigation, the Conflicts of Interest Board and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. 

The budget-related recommendations, shared exclusively with City & State ahead of their release, come as the commission reviews the city’s governing document, soliciting input through public hearings on ways to improve government operations and to strengthen democracy. That process officially kicked off earlier this year after the City Council passed legislation last fall to form the 17-member commission – a move spurred by Mayor Eric Adams’ controversial efforts to assemble his own panels to review the city charter. 

The recommendations released in the report Friday are not final – the commission isn’t expected to unveil finalized ballot proposals until the end of the summer. But it does build significantly on many of the ideas detailed in the commission’s April preliminary report, offering the most concrete and specific look yet at potential changes to the charter panel members are weighing. The portion shared with City & State focused heavily on budget transparency and adequately funding the city’s cohort of independent oversight agencies – specifically, with the goal to prevent potential future efforts to dilute their oversight abilities. This has been a hot topic over the past year as Adams and many members of his inner circle were subject to a series of investigations that spilled into the public eye.

“Amending the charter is not a small task. We’re working, if nothing else, to make sure that our local government is functional,” said Danielle Castaldi-Micca, the commission’s executive director. “We’ve seen especially in recent years that a lot of government is run on norms, and it is very difficult to fight back when those norms start getting ignored. Norms need to get codified.”

One way the recommendations suggest doing this is by establishing a minimum budget for the Conflicts of Interest Board and the Department of Investigation based on a percentage of the city’s overall expense budget. (For COIB, that could be 0.003%). This would theoretically prevent any future mayor from reducing the agencies’ budgets for political reasons, according to Castaldi-Micca, who said the idea isn’t to target the current mayor or any one else in particular. 

For example, had the proposed changes been in place during last year’s budget negotiations between the Adams administration and the City Council, COIB’s budget for the current fiscal year would have been a minimum of $3.2 million – up from the current $2.5 million. DOI’s budget is currently $49 million – and would also increase under the current proposals.

“The goal is for these to be evergreen proposals,” Castaldi-Micca said. “It’s not so much reading between the lines to address a current issue as it is identifying that these are agencies that I think are particularly vulnerable to political interference.”

Another recommendation would modify the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s budget from its current headcount-based model to one based on the New York City Police Department’s personnel costs. Others propose that the Board of Correction and the Equal Employment Practices Commission should be “funded at a level adequate to fulfill its Charter responsibilities,” although specifics on what that would look like haven’t been determined yet. 

These recommendations are just a piece of the overall report, which also includes a handful of proposed tweaks to bolster transparency throughout the budgeting process. Other recommendations could pertain to the mayor’s power to make appointments (advice-and-consent), land use, affordable housing, tenant protections, according to the preliminary report. 

While the commission plans to release its final ballot proposals after completing a third round of public hearings, it’s likely the measures won’t go before voters until next year instead of during the upcoming November general election. That’s because the charter revision commission convened by Adams is currently working on its own set of ballot proposals, which would take precedence over any put forward by the City Council’s panel due to a procedural quirk. State lawmakers introduced legislation last fall seeking to amend this aspect of the law, but it’s unlikely to be passed in time to take effect. 

“That change notwithstanding, I assume we are going to get bumped,” Castaldi-Micca said. “So we’d be looking at 2026 at some point.”