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Mayor Adams' record-breaking $102B budget paints a foggy future for climate initiatives
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Feb 3, 2023
Modified Feb 10, 2023
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John Angelillo/UPI/Shutterstock
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Feb 3, 2023
Modified Feb 10, 2023
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Last month, Mayor Eric Adams proposed a record-breaking $102.7-billion draft budget, but cuts to key departments could influence New York City’s ability to reach its climate goals.
The reductions include both headcounts and funding for municipal agencies such as the Department of Buildings, which is tasked with implementing Local Law 97, an ambitious regulation that requires cuts to the metro area’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings account for about two-thirds of this pollution.
For the second year in a row, Adams’ proposal falls short on a campaign promise to give the parks department 1% of the city’s total budget needed to maintain and expand greenspace to expand climate efforts with green infrastructure.
The budget does include some support for climate goals. It calls for the hiring of chief decarbonization officers for various agencies to prioritize and streamline reductions in climate pollution in city operations. According to the mayor’s office, five positions were added in the 2023 executive budget to assist with implementation of the landmark law. But overall, the austerity measures could stymie climate progress, experts said.
“One of the more significant takeaways from the budget proposal is the many vacancy reductions that appear throughout the budget, particularly as pertained to departments like the Department of Buildings and the Department of Sanitation,” said Amy Turner, senior fellow at Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
The sanitation department helps control carbon emissions through its management of waste streams. The mayor proposes to cut 20% of the city’s contribution to DSNY even as he promises to roll out a weekly citywide composting program over the next 20 months. City Hall press secretary Jonah Allon said this contribution doesn’t reflect federal and state grant funds that are part of the agency’s budget.
He added, for example, that a $265 million drop in city funding for DSNY would be replaced by federal stimulus funds. When accounting for state and federal funds, Allon acknowledged that DSNY’s budget would still drop 6% from this fiscal year to the next under the mayor’s proposal.
The numbers also show a slight increase in DSNY staffing, about 0.5%. While the DSNY couldn’t provide a number on the additional cost and staffing required to run the nation’s largest organic waste program, Turner said this program is “really important for decarbonizing” and that reductions in staffing could make an impact, especially when it’s not included in the capital budget.
The department of environmental protection (DEP) works on both climate mitigation and adaptation, mostly with stormwater management, which has plagued the city during heavy precipitation. The budget calls for a 6% decrease in funding with an increase in staffing of just two additional positions. The agency is in charge of upgrading the sewer system at a rate of 1% per year to meet the new reality of increased floods.
DEP is also rolling out Cloudburst Management by 2025, a program to turn the Big Apple into a super sponge to soak up the record rainfall with rain gardens and porous pavements with underground storage tanks. The mayor promised nearly $400 million in capital funding for four flood-prone neighborhoods: Corona, Kissena Park, Parkchester and East New York. Cloudburst is not specifically listed by name in the capital budget, which focuses mostly on sewer upgrades, water pollution control and some stormwater controls
The Parks Department is involved with adapting to climate change by maintaining greenspace. Trees are “natural air conditioners” cooling down the city and helping to reduce the urban heat island effect. They absorb rainfall, and reduce runoff that leads to flooding, property damage and deaths.
Central Park has more than 18,000 trees, and each mature tree can absorb nearly 50 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, which comes to about 1 million pounds of carbon dioxide removed from the air every year just from Central Park alone – equivalent to the emissions from over 1 million miles driven by gas-powered cars. This year, just like last year, parks won’t get its promised 1% either. Instead, the mayor proposes to reduce funding by 6% and staffing by nearly 2%.
Allon countered that the current budget for fiscal year 2023 funded the planting of an estimated 20,000 trees annually citywide through fiscal year 2026 with a focus on heat-vulnerable neighborhoods. He did not address questions about the promised 1% of the city’s total budget.
For a second year running, the mayor fell short on campaign promise to fund the Parks Department with 1% of the city's overall budget.
“We are taking steps in the right direction, but we are not trying to get to the revolutionary change that we know is necessary,” said Dr. Gernot Wagner, climate economist at Columbia Business School. “If you keep stringing them [city agencies] along, telling them to do more with less money while also adding priorities, you are just not going to get there. You get people to cut corners and that's exactly what we see so far.”
The city’s transportation department will also face the budget squeeze. It would have to operate with about 4% less money, but its headcount would go up 1%. This office oversees the maintenance and construction of bike lanes and pedestrian areas, the increase of either could lead to reduction in climate pollution resulting from gas-powered vehicles.
During his campaign, Adams, who is also a cyclist, pledged to install 300 miles of protected bike lanes and 150 miles of bus lanes during his term. Adams also expressed support for the 25 by 25 plan, which takes about a quarter of the city’s roads and makes them pedestrian-only by 2025, similar to the successful program to transform Times Square by increasing foot traffic and reducing cars.
Along with the fiscal budget is a nearly $160-billion,10-year capital funding strategy. As this strategy relates to transportation, most monies are dedicated to improvements and resurfacing of existing roads and highways. There is no specific mention of new bike lanes or pedestrian areas.
Why Department Of Buildings cuts are noteworthy
As the pandemic cooled, job vacancies became a persistent occurrence across city agencies, and in his remarks announcing the budget proposal, the mayor suggested to removing those openings by not seeking to fill those positions, in order to save money. Turner said this “paring down” of staff is going to have a big impact on decarbonizing buildings
“The Department of Buildings oversees basically all aspects of Local Law 97,” Turner said. “The agency is going to have to staff up in order to oversee Local Law 97.”
The law is highly complex, and building owners will need support staff to navigate it. With these new building code requirements aimed at building decarbonization, electrification, renewable energy generation, building design and construction, the agency will need to ensure compliance with new requirements.
“The fact that we’re not looking to staff up some of these offices or agencies is concerning with respect to Local Law 97 implementation,” Turner said.
According to the proposed budget numbers, the Department of Buildings could lose 51 city-funded positions — or 3% of its workforce. Its municipal funding could also decrease by about 14%. These cuts would come during the fiscal year when the law is due to be implemented. There is only one mention of Local Law 97 in the 10-year capital strategy, but it’s only reference to city-owned buildings.
“The Adams administration is fully committed to implementing Local Law 97, and we will ensure the Department of Buildings has the sufficient resources to do so,” Allon said. “At a time when we are witnessing growing threats to our city from more severe storms to intense heat waves, we must reduce emissions from our buildings sector, which accounts for 70 percent of our city’s emissions.”
There is $259 million earmarked for meeting greenhouse gas reduction by electrifying boilers at two education facilities, upgrading building management systems at four CUNY campuses and energy upgrades at seven sanitation department garages to begin transitioning away from fossil fuels. The city and its related agencies own or lease more than 17,000 buildings.
“[If the city wants to make the greatest impact on climate change] They would put their money into the Department of Buildings and Local Law 97,” Turner said. “It really very much depends on implementation at this point, but it's going to require a lot of staffing, and we're just not seeing that at the D.O.B.”
Meanwhile, the 10-year capital funding strategy commits 42% for infrastructure spread out over four agencies: sanitation (2% or $3.8 billion), environmental protection (19% or $29 billion), transit and transportation (21% or $33.3 billion).
For transportation and environmental protection departments, this represents an increase over the previous capital budget that allocated 32% or nearly $32 billion for both. Sanitation will receive a little less percentage-wise, but overall it comes to a slight increase in dollar amounts.
The parks department could potentially get nearly $9 billion over the next 10 years, which is an increase over the $5.6 billion it was slated to get. Resiliency and energy efficiency projects could receive just over $6 billion, which remains the same.
The department of buildings and Local Law 97 are only mentioned in the capital budget in reference to emissions generated by city government activities, though public buildings will receive $2.6 billion.
“When it comes to decarbonizing buildings in New York City, it's all about relatively large investments upfront for massive benefits later,” Wagner said. “Timing is of the essence here. It takes a long time for these investment decisions to be made and then executed, and what we need to do in order to cut emissions on time and on the budget is to make sure that we are starting now, I mean yesterday.”
The mayor and the city council must come to an agreement on an adopted budget for New York City by the beginning of the next fiscal year on July 1.
This story was updated with additional comments and details on sanitation department funding from City Hall press secretary Jonah Allon.
Tagged
climate change
Health and Science
new york city
environment
eric adams
Rosemary Misdary
Rosemary is health & science reporter. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 646-544-9524.
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