City Council: Single sentence counts as member item 'report'
When it comes to one aspect of member item reform, the New York City Council appears to have a generous interpretation of just how much information must be shared to count as a "report" on the funding.
In 2014, City Council members extolled a handful of reforms related to discretionary funds, including one which lawmakers said would require “grantees to provide a short report on their use of the grant.”
But in at least one instance identified by City & State, that “short report” was simply one sentence.
City & State filed a Freedom of Information Law request for any reports the nonprofit Citizens Committee for New York City, Inc. submitted to the City Council detailing how it used two $5,000 discretionary funding grants that were at the heart of a complaint filed with state lobbying regulators.
The FOIL response City & State received contains a single sentence describing how the first round of $5,000 was spent, saying, “FY15 funds were utilized for the Neighborhood Grants program as well as environmental advocacy and fiscal conduit purposes.”
When asked about the report, the City Council press office said the sentence submitted by the nonprofit meets the body’s standards. A spokesperson pointed to a section of the Council’s rules that said a summary, rather than a report, was required: “All organizations that receive discretionary funding from the expense or capital budgets shall be required to complete a brief summary of how they have utilized such awarded funds.”
The Citizens Committee’s website describes the Neighborhood Grants program as an initiative that awards micro-grants of up to $3,000 to resident-led community and school projects.
A spokesman for Citizens Committee for New York City, Inc. declined to comment.
City budget documents note that the two grants were “to provide for reusable bag giveaways and outreach events about the environmental impacts of single-use carryout bags.” At the time, New York City Councilwoman Margaret Chin and her colleague Councilman Brad Lander were sponsoring legislation to impose a fee on bags in an attempt to deter New Yorkers’ from using them. It has since passed the Council but has not yet been signed by the mayor.
The complaint asked the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics to examine whether discretionary funding Chin directed to the nonprofit wound up being used to promote her bill, and therefore, lobbying activity should have been disclosed to JCOPE.
Chin has described the complaint as an attack from those with an anti-environmental agenda.
You can view the summary below.
"Report" submitted by Citizens Committee for New York City, Inc. by City & State NY