Does Albany need its own management report?

Assembly Member Alex Bores recently proposed a bill that would, if passed, require the state government to create annual preliminary and final management reports.

In the same vein as the New York City Mayor's Management Report, the bill would mandate a statewide report of metrics that show the state’s progress in meeting its goals of efficiently providing services to New Yorkers. The legislation, introduced in February, was referred to the Assembly Governmental Operations Committee. Avi Small, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said she would review the legislation if it passes the state Senate and Assembly.

“Like New York City’s management report, an annual state report would update the residents on statewide services and trend lines across areas most relevant to the everyday person’s life: economy, public safety, housing, etc.,” state Sen. James Skoufis, who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate, told City & State.

Bores credited a November 2024 X post from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro about improving government efficiency as inspiration for the bill.

Bores said he then saw a reply to his praise for Shapiro from the director of research at the Empire Center saying New York state agencies don’t have a platform for metrics. Bores clarified to City & State that some state agencies publish metrics individually, but there is no comprehensive report of the agencies’ metrics in a single document.

“Instead of having to pull 100 different reports, I should be able to just look at one and year over year see what’s happening. I think citizens deserve to have that sort of insight and transparency on how the government’s doing,” Bores said.

Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser at the good-government group Reinvent Albany, said the metrics used in the Mayor’s Management Report vary depending on the priorities of each administration and the data has to be consistent throughout time.

“It’s a data point, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you exactly what you want in a meaningful way,” Fauss said. “It’s a question of trying to make a science out of city government, when sometimes it’s a little bit more of an art.”

Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, called Bores’ bill “nearly identical” to the language mandating the Mayor’s Management Report in the city charter, thus it would have the same “shortcomings.”

Orecki acknowledged the benefit of striving for transparency but said a state management report would need “greater metrics and also tie very clearly to the actual management and government operations.” He recommended the report cover “not just being what the government has done” but also “focusing on the quality of service, and tying that to your goals.”

Orecki added he believes the bill should also account for the fundamental differences between city government and state government. State government predominantly involves grant-based spending on state programs like Medicaid and school funding, setting parameters to allocate funds to local governments versus cities that directly provide those services to residents.

“This is a bill aimed at keeping New Yorkers informed about where their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent,” Skoufis said. “I’m always optimistic we’ll see this kind of commonsense legislation pass.”