Mamdani has placed DCWP front and center. Menin wants him to give it $32M more

The New York City Council is seeking an additional $32 million from the Mamdani administration to fund the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection – an ambitious request they argue is overdue to help the city’s top labor agency stay on top of its expanding responsibilities. 

The new request, which council members intend to hammer during a Friday budget hearing, would bring total funding for DCWP to roughly $110.4 million. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s executive budget plan currently proposes a $78.4 million allocation for the agency for next fiscal year – up from the $74.7 million included in his preliminary proposal, but still off from what the City Council is now pushing to see. The Adams administration by contrast allocated roughly $75 million towards the agency last year, but later modified it to a little over $85.5 million. Mamdani has vowed to raise DCWP’s budget to $96.6 million by fiscal year 2030. 

“I just don’t think that goes far enough,” Menin told City & State, referencing the Mamdani administration’s proposal for next fiscal year. “It’s pretty close to where the agency was a year ago so it’s just not meeting the needs of what needs to happen at this particular moment, which is why we’re pushing for the additional $32 million.”

The additional funding, according to Menin, is needed to fully support DCWP’s enforcing and licensing responsibilities, some of which were recently expanded by the legislative body. That includes new measures to increase wages for private sector security guards,  additional protections and licenses for street vendors, the Safe Hotel Act, and expanded legal protections for delivery workers and delivery drivers. That would also include funding for an additional 271 positions over the next three years. Mamdani previously pledged to increase staffing by 180 positions over roughly the same time period, starting with 77 in fiscal year 2027. It’s not clear how the mayor plans to stretch his proposed budget to add that many positions next year. The agency currently employs a little over 400 people.

DCWP has a long history of doing a lot without an abundance of resources. Tasked with investigating and enforcing the city’s labor and consumer protection laws, the agency has long weathered chronic understaffing.

Its wellbeing is of particular interest to Menin, who served as its commissioner under former Mayor Bill de Blasio for several years. 

“Bill after bill after bill has been given to DCWP in recent years … and it just reaches a breaking point,” Menin said, adding that even more legislation is expected to come down the pipeline soon, like measures banning surveillance pricing. “Consumer and worker protection is incredibly important at any time, but it’s even more important when we’re dealing with an affordability crisis,” she added. 

Mamdani has cast DCWP as a core pillar of his affordability and worker protection agenda – an emphasis that goes back to when he as a candidate pledged to double the agency’s budget. Mamdani’s DCWP has recovered $9.3 million in restitution for workers and small businesses as of April.

“This budget represents the single greatest investment in consumer rights and worker rights in the history of DCWP,” DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine said in a statement that ignores the previous mayor’s midyear adjustment to the budget of the agency last year. “Additional resources will pay dividends toward ensuring we can implement the agency’s new mandates and deliver tangible economic relief for everyday people.”

Levine, DCWP Deputy Commissioner Elizabeth Wagoner, Chief of Staff Carlos Ortiz, and General Counsel Michael Tiger are all expected to testify at the City Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection budget hearing Friday, according to the speaker’s office.

“The council’s passed lots of legislation in this lane to talk about worker rights and worker protections,” said Council Member Harvey Epstein, chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. “We just need to make sure they have sufficient resources to protect low-wage workers and to protect consumers.”