Creating Vibrant Communities

March 8, 2019.  New York is one of the country’s largest states with one of the most notoriously hard-to-count populations. California is one of many state's that have begun planning for the upcoming census count, allocating $100million in their state budget to prepare for the decennial survey. This article discusses why planning for the census is important for New York and why the state needs to take action in this budget cycle. Need of at least $40 million The Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank [...]

March 4, 2019. This article discusses the efforts of advocates in a statewide coalition calling on the governor and legislature to include $60 million in the executive budget for 2020 census preparation. The article quotes advocates who argue that this funding is needed to handle a variety of challenges due to the census being administered online for the first time and to ensure an accurate count by providing funding to community based organizations who are trusted by the hard-to-count population. The Cuomo administration has previously [...]

December 10, 2018. This article discusses the work of advocates, community-based organizations (CBOs) and city officials on early preparation for the 2020 census given the challenges that will have to be faced including the possibility of a citizenship question. These advocates and CBOs are calling on the federal government for funding to help complete early preparation work that includes educating people on the importance of the census, efforts to reach hard-to-count communities and provide resources for census completion. Advocates argue that federal under-funding and the [...]

October 31, 2018. This article discusses the New York Counts 2020 coalition’s press conference which called on the New York State legislature to provide $40 million in the state budget to fund outreach for the 2020 Census. Shamier Settle, Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute, introduced a report by the Institute detailing the cost analysis for statewide census education and community outreach. In 2010, 24 percent of New Yorkers did not return their census forms by mail, known as a “hard to count” population, [...]

August 2, 2018. This article discusses the pressures being placed on the Senate to return to Albany to take up a bill re-authorizing New York City to operate cameras in school zones to catch speeders and the call to tackle ethics reform. The two ethics reform bills that stalled in the Assembly before its session ended in June are aimed at boosting government transparency and oversight. One of these bills is the "database of deals", a policy supported by The Fiscal Policy Institute, which would permit the public [...]

July 18, 2018. With the wave of unprecedented public corruption scandals and criminal convictions in New York State government, it would make sense for a wave of accountability and ethics reform to follow. That is not the case. Governor Cuomo and legislators have failed to adopt any of the ethics reforms called for by government watchdog groups, including toughening oversight of state contracts, eliminating a loophole that allows companies to ignore campaign-contribution limits, and appointing an independent monitor for ethics and election laws. With the recent [...]

June 18, 2018. This article and corresponding radio clip discusses the bid rigging trial of a former associate of Governor Cuomo and two upstate development firms, who are accused of fraudulently obtaining lucrative taxpayer-funded state contracts, and the currently stalled-in-the-Assembly package of accountability and transparency reform bills. Multiple reform groups, including the Fiscal Policy Institute, want the Assembly to pass the package and restore the State Comptroller’s authority over reviewing the economic development contracts, and enact a public database, known as the "Database of Deals," of [...]